WILLIAM  DEAN  HOWELLS 


WILLIAM  DEAN  HOWELLS 

A  CRITICAL  STUDY 

BY 

DELMAR  GROSS  COOKE 


NEW  YORK 

E.  P.  BUTTON  &  COMPANY 
681  FIFTH  AVENUE 


COPYHIOHT, 

BY  E.  P.  DUTTON  &  COMPANY 

All  Rights  Reserved 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


TV) 

STUART   PRATT  SHERMAN 

AXD 

ERNEST  BERNBAUM 


505843 


NOTE 

The  author  is  indebted  to  Harper  and 
Brothers  and  Houghton  Mifflin  Company  for 
their  generous  permission  to  quote  from  the 
works  of  William  Dean  Howells,  and  to  the 
editor  of  The  Texas  Review  for  permission  to 
use  with  slight  changes  an  article  which  first  ap 
peared  in  that  journal. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    THE  MAN 1 

II.    His  CONCEPTION  OF  CRITICISM      ....  40 

III.     His  IDEALS  OF  LITERATURE 60 

IV.    His  LITERARY  METHOD 83 

V.     His  POETRY  AND  TRAVELS 117 

VI.    His  FICTION  :  TRANSCRIPTS  OF  LIFE    .     .     .  152 

VII.     His  FICTION  :  STUDIES  IN  ETHICS  ....  221 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 257 

INDEX  273 


WILLIAM  DEAN  HOWELLS 


WILLIAM   DEAN 
HOWELLS 


THE   MAN 

CEITICISM  has  been  reluctant  to  associate 
with  William  Dean  Howells  those  human 
qualities  he  most  prized  or  to  identify  the  inform 
ing  spirit  of  his  art  with  the  spirit  of  democratic 
living  upon  which  he  was  most  insistent.  He  will 
presently  be  established  in  the  critical  conscious 
ness  as  a  literary  leader,  as  a  social  historian,  and 
as  an  unrivalled  technician.  In  the  mind  of  the 
student  of  letters,  he  will  emerge  from  the  great 
artistic  evolution  that  was  consciously  forming 
the  world-literature  of  his  time — the  realistic 
movement,  as  we  loosely  style  it — the  most  con 
spicuous  figure  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic.  Many 
of  less  exclusive  interests  will  look  to  him,  with 
astonishment  at  the  accuracy  of  his  methods  and 
at  the  length  and  singleness  of  his  devotion,  as  an 
indispensable  recorder  of  the  national  life.  And 
his  perfection  in  all  that  relates  to  literary  han 
dling  ought  to  become  a  still  more  compelling 
source  of  refreshment  and  renewal  to  the  fellows 
of  his  craft.  But  these  valuations  of  his  worth 


2  William  Dean  Howells 

all  point  to  a  writer  of  yesterday.  In  one  way  or 
another  they  commit  him  to  the  shadows  of  lit 
erary  history,  while  all  that  he  valued  in  literature 
was  an  essence  that  is  timeless.  He  was  content 
to  rest  his  title  to  immortality  on  qualities  of 
spirit  that  were  to  Chaucer  and  to  Cervantes. 

His  exploits  as  a  literary  leader  group  them 
selves  about  one  central  purpose — the  substitu 
tion  of  simple  humane  criteria  for  all  others,  lit 
erary  or  moral.  The  enterprises  to  which  he  lent 
the  weight  of  his  authority — and  he  commanded 
an  almost  superstitious  reverence — were  calcu 
lated  to  loose  in  America  dynamic  forces  that 
should  make  for  a  humanistic  and  democratic 
literature.  And  I  do  not  believe  that  he  cared 
greatly  about  the  nature  of  those  forces,  provided 
they  propelled  the  native  talent  in  the  right  direc 
tion.  He  was  eager  in  the  support  of  such  dis 
parate  undertakings  as  the  popularization  of  the 
Eussian  novel  and  the  establishment  of  a  school 
of  local  or  regional  fiction,  wishing  American 
literary  youth  to  catch  the  complete  naturalness 
and  high  seriousness  with  which  the  Russian  mas 
ters  handled  their  material  and  fearing  lest  it  fall 
under  the  spell  of  foreign  themes  and  foreign 
color.  If  the  notoriety  he  once  enjoyed  as  a 
doctrinaire  and  dogmatist  persists,  it  is  because 
some  of  his  opponents  made  literature  of  their 
controversial  writings,  Robert  Louis  Stevenson, 
for  example,  putting  the  remonstrance  greeting 
him  as  a  bondslave  and  zealot  of  the  narrowest 
convictions  into  Memories  and  Portraits.  But  it 
is  hardly  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  the  chief  of 
his  aims  as  a  schoolmaster  was  the  abolition  of 


The  Man  3 

discipleship  and  pupilage.  Mr.  Hamlin  Garland, 
who  told  us  through  the  magazines  long  before  he 
produced  A  Son  of  the  Middle  Border  how  he 
became  an  adherent  of  Howells  in  the  eighties, 
when  Howells  was  an  " issue,"  was  greatly  im 
pressed  by  this  fact  and  recorded  his  realization 
of  it  glowingly : 

"As  the  art  which  Mr.  Howells  represents  de 
clines  to  be  held  accountable  to  any  age,  or  land, 
or  individual,  so  it  discourages  discipleship.  It 
says  to  the  young  writer:  'Look  to  nature  and  to 
actuality  for  your  model — not  to  any  book,  or  man, 
or  number  of  men.  Be  true  to  yourself.  Write  of 
that  of  which  you  know  the  most,  and  follow  faith 
fully  the  changes  in  your  feeling.  Put  yourself 
down  before  common  realities,  common  hopes, 
common  men,  till  their  pathos  and  mystery,  and 
significance  flood  you  like  a  sea,  and  when  the  life 
that  is  all  about  you  is  so  rich  with  drama  and 
poetry,  and  the  vista  of  human  thought  and  pas 
sion  so  infinite  that  you  are  in  despair  of  ever  ex 
pressing  a  thousandth  part  of  what  you  feel,  then 
all  idea  of  discipleship  will  be  at  an  end.  Your 
whole  aim  will  be  to  be  true  to  yourself  and  your 
infinite  teacher,  nature,  and  you  will  no  longer 
strive  to  delineate  beauty,  but  truth,  and  at  last 
truth  will  be  beauty.' 

His  unique  importance  as  a  recorder  of  Ameri 
can  civilization  no  less  than  his  influence  as  chief 
of  a  school  is  fundamentally  conditioned  not  by 
his  genius  as  a  reporter  but  by  the  humanity  of 
his  motives.  When  he  advertised  himself  as  a 
realist,  he  announced  that  realism  was  not  a  new 

'"Mr.  Howolls*  Latest  Novels,"  in  the  New  England 
sine  (1890),  2(n.  s.):243. 


4  William  Dean  Howells 

theory  but  only  one  that  had  never  before  so  uni 
versally  characterized  literary  endeavor,  and  that 
its  assertions  were  simply  that  fidelity  to  experi 
ence  was  the  essential  condition  of  a  great  imagi 
native  literature,  and  that  the  function  of  such  a 
literature  was  to  widen  the  bounds  of  human  sym 
pathy  and  make  men  better  known  to  one  another. 
"When  realism  becomes  false  to  itself/'  he  sol 
emnly  warned,  "when  it  heaps  up  facts  merely, 
and  maps  life  instead  of  picturing  it,  realism  will 
perish  too. ' ' 2  That  was  to  say,  even  as  classi 
cism  and  romanticism  perished — because  they 
became  faithless  to  fact.  Thus,  he  proposed  truth 
to  the  actual  as  an  essential  but  not  a  final  condi 
tion  of  art ;  and  if  he  ascribed  any  intrinsic  finality 
to  veritism  as  a  method  it  was  because  the  course 
of  literary  history  presented  itself  to  his  view 
not  merely  as  a  cyclic  evolution  but  as  an  advance 
— a  progress  toward  the  conscious  and  exclusive 
employment  of  the  data  of  human  experience  and 
the  definite  recognition  of  human  values. 

The  subtleties  of  technique  by  which  Howells 
realized  his  large  and  generous  aims  will  be  found 
to  sustain  a  very  close  relation  to  them.  This  is 
a  matter  that  his  critics  and  readers  have  scarcely 
begun  to  understand.  His  insistence  on  imper 
sonality  and  detachment  as  the  authorial  attitude, 
for  example,  has  brought  him  a  great  deal  of  ill 
will  from  the  critics  and  no  end  of  miscomprehen 
sion  from  his  readers.  Even  so  sound  a  theorist 
and  so  discerning  a  commentator  as  Mr.  W.  C. 
Brownell  rushed  to  the  defence  of  Thackeray 
when  Howells  attacked  him  for  his  gross  viola- 

1  Criticism  and  Fiction  (1893),  p.  15. 


The  Man  5 

tions  of  this  principle.  Yet  this  is  the  very  crux 
of  the  Howells  technique,  involving  the  abandon 
ment  of  sentimentalism  and  satire  as  instruments 
of  the  moral  novel,  and  thus  serving  more  than 
anything  else  to  make  it  an  experiment  in  human 
ism.  This  is  a  sort  of  secret  that  yields  itself 
only  to  the  few  but  sincere  readers  who  come  to 
the  Howells  people  without  the  common  prepos 
session  for  "literary  creations. "  I  well  remem 
ber  my  pleasure  in  an  article  by  Mr.  W.  B.  Trites 
in  the  Forum  for  February,  1913,  in  which  he  tells 
how  this  happened  with  him,  and  of  his  boyish 
difficulties  with  the  characters  of  The  Minister's 
Charge,  which  was  read  in  his  home : 

"It  interested  us  profoundly.  We  discussed 
Lemuel,  Sewell,  Statira,  and  the  rest  as  though 
they  had  been  real  people.  I  remember  still  and 
starry  nights  of  blood-curdling  cold  when  I  would 
be  intensely  annoyed  by  Mr.  Howells'  kindly  treat 
ment  of  the  officious  Mrs.  Sewell — for,  little  boy 
that  I  was,  I  did  not  then  perceive  that  for  Mr. 
Howells  to  give  the  squarest  of  *  square  deals'  to 
a  character  does  not  inevitably  mean  that  he  up 
holds  all  that  character's  conduct — and  I  remem 
ber  nights  of  wild  wind  and  snow  when  Lemuel's 
stern  aloofness  shocked  and  displeased  me,  though 
at  the  same  time  I  liked  very  much  the  lad's  honor, 
his  delicate  pride." 

Just  as  the  practice  of  Howells  gives  a  new  and 
a  more  literal  meaning  to  the  somewhat  banal 
precept  that  urges  the  "identification"  of  the 
author  with  common  humanity,  so  the  greatest, 
the  most  inclusive  platitude  of  all — that  which 


6  William  Dean  Howells 

exacts  a  general  identification  of  the  ideals  of 
literature  with  the  ideals  of  life — undergoes  a 
stringent  reinterpretation  in  his  works.  No  mod 
ern  master,  save  Tolstoi  himself,  has  imagined  a 
fusion  of  the  aims  and  methods  of  literature  with 
those  of  life  so  indissoluble  as  that  upon  which 
Howells  was  accustomed  to  insist.  Literature  is 
life ;  life,  literature.  This  is  what  he  had  in  mind 
when  he  entitled  one  of  his  later  collections 
Literature  and  Life  (1902).  "If  I  did  not  find 
life  in  what  professed  to  be  literature, "  he  ex 
plained  in  the  foreword  to  that  volume,  "I  dis 
abled  its  profession,  and  possibly  from  this  habit, 
now  inveterate  with  me,  I  am  never  quite  sure  of 
life  unless  I  find  literature  in  it." 

All  the  autobiographical  works,  especially  the 
intimate  and  indispensable  Literary  Passions, 
are  clear  records  of  a  growth  from  literature  into 
life,  from  books  into  the  world  from  which  books 
are  made — a  kind  of  recapitulation  of  the  literary 
movement  with  which  their  author  became  identi 
fied.  This  development,  therefore,  will  be  domi 
nant  in  what  little  account  appears  here  of 
Howells  the  Man.  In  this  life,  one  of  singular 
devotion  to  letters, — unwavering,  unreserved  de 
votion,  almost  from  the  cradle, — we  shall  see  him 
born  of  a  reading  race,  nourished  on  printer's  ink, 
exulting  in  the  very  srnell  of  paper,  obsessed  by 
the  printed  page,  gradually  awakening  to  a  truer 
literary  sense.  We  shall  see  him  climb  down  from 
the  "very  high  aesthetic  horse "  which  he  confesses 
having  ridden,  draw  near  to  humanity,  and  learn 
"to  see  books  from  without  the  library."  We 
shall  observe  him  emerge  from  the  eighteenth 


The  Man  7 

century,  his  idol,  Pope,  crumbling  in  the  dust; 
close  his  Thackeray,  open  his  Tolstoi. 

These  autobiographical  documents  are  happily 
as  numerous  as  they  are  rich  in  interest  and  poetic 
grace.  Besides  My  Literary  Passions  (1895),  we 
have  A  Boy's  Town  (1890),  one  of  the  best  of  his 
books,  which  is  in  all  essentials  autobiography, 
thinly  veiled  by  the  use  of  the  third  person;  My 
Year  in  a  Log  Cabin  (1893),  the  most  immediately 
engaging  of  the  sketches  of  Ohio  life;  Literary 
Friends  and  Acquaintance:  a  Personal  Retrospect 
of  American  Authorship  (1900) ;  and  Years  of 
My  Youth  (1916).  Supplementary  portraits  of 
his  father  may  be  found  in  his  introduction  and 
conclusion  to  Recollections  of  Life  in  Ohio,  1813- 
1840  (1895),  and  the  initial  essay  ("The  Country 
Printer ")  to  Impressions  and  Experiences 
(1896).  Furthermore,  as  we  read  the  various 
essaya  and  sketches,  we  come  constantly  upon 
bits  of  Cambridge,  Boston,  and  New  York  that 
are  to  a  measurable  degree  autobiographical. 
And  this  is  equally  true  of  the  travel  books,  Ital 
ian,  English,  Spanish — all  of  them.  The  auto 
biographic  manner  is  inveterate;  everything  is 
projected  upon  the  background  of  the  author's 
personality.  When  he  contributes  to  a  souvenir 
volume  like  The  Niagara  Book  (1893),  that  per 
sonality  is  his  contribution.  Others  deal  forth 
history,  humor,  geology,  description,  according  to 
their  respective  talents  and  interests;  to  him  the 
most  interesting  object  at  Niagara,  and  the  one 
he  is  most  practiced  in  describing,  is  his  own 
genial  self.  "Niagara,  First  and  Last,"  accord 
ingly  and  characteristically,  becomes  a  chapter 


8  William  Dean  Howells 

toward  an  autobiography.  These  documents  are 
unequalled  in  their  blend  of  intimacy  with  solid 
dignity.  Their  inimitable  modesty  and  human- 
ness,  their  light  play  of  self-depreciation,  their 
whimsicality  and  air  of  making  an  adventure  of 
everything — all  these  mask  the  record  of  a  career 
in  which  the  gods  seem  to  have  conspired  to  make 
nothing  capricious,  nothing  inconsequent.  The 
rigors  of  self-analysis  are  not  merely  shorn  of  the 
sense  of  futility  that  is  often  their  accompaniment 
but  are  clothed  in  the  glamour  of  poetry. 

The  habit  of  poetizing  every-day  existence  and 
the  tendency  to  introspection  were  evidently  an 
inheritance  with  Howells.  His  great-grandmother 
once  wrote  to  a  daughter,  upon  some  occasion  of 
wilfulness,  that  she  had  "planted  a  dagger  in  her 
mother's  heart, "  which  led  him  to  believe  that 
this  ancestress  was  not  unacquainted  with  the 
romances  of  her  day.  It  was  from  her,  he 
thought,  that  his  grandfather  inherited  a  love  of 
poetry,  rather  than  from  the  great-grandfather, 
who,  although  a  Friend  by  ' l  convincement, ' '  must 
have  had  a  somewhat  worldly  turn  of  mind,  since 
he  accumulated  a  fortune  in  the  manufacture  of 
flannels,  which  industry  he  founded  in  the  pretty 
little  Welsh  town  called  The  Hay,  on  the  river 
Wye,  and  even  made  a  prospecting  trip  to 
America. 

The  Grandfather  Howells  sailed  for  Boston  in 
1808  and,  after  peregrinations  extending  over 
New  York,  Virginia,  and  Ohio,  with  experiments 
in  woolen  milling  and  farming,  settled  in  Hamil 
ton,  Ohio,  as  proprietor  of  a  drug  and  book  store, 


The  Man  9 

the  only  book  store  in  the  place.  He  was  a  Meth 
odist,  and,  says  his  grandson,  "kept  his  affection 
for  certain  poets  of  the  graver,  not  to  say  gloom 
ier  sort." 

Religion  and  poetry  were  both  more  pervading 
influences  in  the  life  of  William  Cooper  Howells, 
the  father  of  William  Dean.  He  suffered  a  season 
of  skepticism,  during  which  he  vainly  endeavored 
to  get  himself  converted  at  camp  meetings,  finally 
espousing  the  doctrines  of  Swedenborg;  and  in 
that  faith  the  children  were  carefully  reared.  It 
was  an  influence  that  dignified  the  home  life,  for 
there  was  nothing  of  fanaticism  or  of  dogmatism 
in  the  elder  Howells.  He  "despised  austerity  as 
something  owlish"  and  "loved  a  joke  almost  as 
much  as  he  loved  a  truth. "  3  It  did,  however,  cut 
the  family  off  from  church  going,  their  Sundays 
being  enlivened  only  by  occasional  visits  of  min 
isters  and  by  readings  from  the  Book  of  Worship 
and  the  Heavenly  Arcana.  The  children  had  their 
"unwholesome  spiritual  pride  in  being  different 
from  their  fellows  in  religion,  but,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  taught  them  not  to  fear  being  different 
from  others  if  they  believed  themselves  right."4 

William  Dean  Howells  was  born  on  March  1, 
1837,  at  Martin's  Ferry,  Ohio.  Three  years  later 
the  family  moved  to  Hamilton,  the  "Boy's 
Town,"  where  the  father  took  charge  of  the 
Intelligencer,  Hamilton's  Whig  newspaper;  but 
since  he  was  a  staunch  Henry  Clay  Whig  and 
Hamilton  was  overwhelmingly  Democratic,  the 

9 A  Boy's  Town   (1890),  p.  14. 

p.  12. 


1O  William  Dean  Howells 

Howells  family  did  not  enjoy  any  decided  change 
in  fortune.  They  remained  as  always,  poor  as  the 
world  reckons,  but  never  in  want. 

The  boy  was  particularly  fortunate  in  his  home 
life.  His  mother,  Mary  Dean  Howells,  although 
she  suffered  on  account  of  her  housewifely  in 
stincts,  often  failing  to  view  the  crudities  of  their 
material  surroundings  in  a  poetic  light,  "was 
always  the  best  and  tenderest  mother,  and  her 
love  had  the  heavenly  art  of  making  each  child 
feel  itself  the  most  important,  while  she  was  par 
tial  to  none."5 

The  dominant  influence  in  forming  his  ideas, 
however,  was  his  association  with  his  father. 
They  were  the  most  congenial  of  companions,  dis 
cussing  literature  and  philosophy  together  as  they 
went  about  their  work.  And  although  they  dif 
fered  in  some  matters  of  taste,  the  main  traits  are 
notably  similar  in  father  and  son — the  tendency 
to  moralize  and  philosophize  on  any  subject, 
always  tempered  by  a  fine  strain  of  humor,  the 
love  of  nature,  even  of  the  most  common  things  in 
nature,  and  the  sense  of  personal  sympathy  with 
men,  even  with  the  most  common  men.  The  son 
writes  of  his  father: 

"  There  was  that  in  him  which  appealed  to  the 
better  qualities  of  those  he  came  in  contact  with, 
and  made  them  wish  to  be  as  good  as  he  thought 
them  capable  of  being.  He  was  not  a  poet  in  the 
artistic  sense,  but  he  was  a  poet  in  his  view  of  life, 
the  universe,  creation,  and  his  dream  of  it  in 
cluded  man,  as  well  as  the  woods  and  fields  and 
their  citizenship.  His  first  emotion  concerning 

•  A  Boy's  Town  (1890),  p.  21. 


The  Man  ll 

every  form  of  life  was  sympathetic;  he  wished  to 
get  upon  common  ground  with  every  person  and 
with  every  thing. 

"But  he  had  the  philosophic  rather  than  the 
imaginative  temperament,  and  what  he  sometimes 
thought  he  wished  to  do  in  literature  and  art  (for 
he  used,  when  young,  to  write  verse  and  to  draw), 
he  would  probably  not  have  done  if  he  had  enjoyed 
all  those  opportunities  and  advantages  which  cir 
cumstances  denied  him. ' '  6 

At  the  age  of  ten,  William  Dean  went  to  work 
in  the  printing  office.  "This  was  not  altogether 
because  he  was  needed  there,  I  dare  say,  but 
because  it  was  part  of  his  father's  Swedenborgian 
philosophy  that  everyone  should  fulfill  a  use;  I 
do  not  know  that  when  the  boy  wanted  to  go  swim 
ming,  or  hunting,  or  skating,  it  consoled  him  much 
to  reflect  that  the  angels  in  the  highest  heaven 
delighted  in  uses;  nevertheless,  it  was  good  for 
him  to  be  of  use,  though  maybe  not  so  much 
use."7 

In  1849  the  family  moved  to  Dayton,  where  the 
father  had  bought  out  the  Transcript.  This  enter 
prise  proved  a  total  failure ;  and  in  the  fall  of  the 
following  year  occurred  another  removal,  this 
time  to  a  log-cabin  on  the  Little  Miami  River, 
with  the  idea  of  superintending  the  "never- 
accomplished  transformation"  of  a  saw-mill  and 
a  grist-mill  into  paper-mills.  Of  the  rude  but 
wholesome  life  there,  Howells  made  one  of  his 
most  delightful  records,  My  Year  in  a  Log-Cabin. 

"Introduction  to  William  Cooper  Howells'  Recollections  of  Life 
in  Ohio  (1895),  p.  IV. 

*  A  Boy's  Town  (1890),  p.  20. 


12  William  Dean  Howells 

The  boys,  at  least,  incited  by  their  father,  entered 
into  pioneer  lif  e  with  a  zest  and  a  romantic  enthu 
siasm  that  made  hardship  and  privation  attractive 
and  stimulating.  • 

The  Island  was  a  fascinating  feature,  appealing 
to  the  boyish  imagination  with  a  sense  of  mystery. 
"I  do  not  know  just  how  it  is  with  a  boy's  world 
now,"  Howells  once  explained,  "but  at  that  time 
it  was  a  very  dangerous  world.  It  was  full  of 
ghosts,  for  one  thing,  and  it  abounded  in  Indians 
on  the  war-path,  and  amateurs  of  kidnapping  and 
murder  of  all  sorts. "  Often  the  Island  resounded 
to  the  war-cries  of  little  savages,  who  had  tutored 
themselves  in  the  ways  of  crime  and  depredation 
with  Howe's  Collections  for  the  History  of  Ohio 
and  a  book  called  Western  Adventure  from  the 
Howells  press  at  Dayton.  A  small  gray  pony  was 
a  favorite  participant  in  these  Indian  dramas,  and 
figured  as  an  Arab  charger  when  the  Moors  of 
Granada  charged  upon  the  Spanish  camp  with 
their  iron-weed  javelins. 

There  was  work  as  well  as  play:  the  boys  la 
bored  manfully  at  clearing  the  woods  of  black- 
walnut,  oak,  and  hickory,  and  at  planting  corn, 
melons,  and  interminable  rows  of  sweet-potatoes. 
In  all,  the  father  was  comrade  and  inspiration. 
The  son  tells  how  famously  they  got  on  driving 
the  cow  out  to  the  new  home,  ' '  talking  of  the  way 
side  things  so  beautiful  in  the  beautiful  autumnal 
day,  all  panoplied  in  the  savage  splendor  of  its 
painted  leaves,  and  of  the  poems  and  histories  so 
dear  to  the  boy  who  limped  barefooted  by  his 
father's  side,  with  his  eye  on  the  cow  and  his  mind 
on  Cervantes  and  Shakespeare,  on — 


The  Man  13 

'The  glory  that  was  Greece, 

And  the  grandeur  that  was  Rome.' n  * 

It  is  not  surprising  that  this  lad  of  thirteen,  who 
talked  literature  and  philosophy  with  his  father, 
should  have  grown  up  with  a  kind  heart  and  a 
poetic  imagination.  Innumerable  reminiscences, 
unmistakable  in  their  sincerity,  reveal  the  sensi 
tive  and  reflective  qualities  of  his  temper.  Of  such 
is  the  memory  of  a  rare  moment  that  came  to  him 
when  returning  with  his  brother  from  an  evening 
errand  to  some  neighbor's: 

"The  shadows  fell  black  from  the  trees  upon 
the  smooth  sward,  but  every;  other  place  was  full 
of  the  tender  light  in  wliich  all  forms  were 
rounded  and  softened ;  the  moon  hung  tranced  in 
the  sky.  We  scarcely  spoke  in  the  shining  soli 
tude,  the  solitude  which  for  once  had  no  terrors 
for  the  childish  fancy,  but  was  only  beautiful. 
This  perfect  beauty  seemed  not  only  to  liberate 
me  from  the  fear  which  is  the  prevailing  mood  of 
childhood,  but  to  lift  my  soul  nearer  and  nearer 
to  the  soul  of  all  things  in  an  exquisite  sympathy. 
Such  moments  never  pass ;  they  are  ineffaceable ; 
their  rapture  immortalizes;  from  them  we  know 
that  whatever  perishes  there  is  something  in  us 
that  cannot  die,  that  divinely  regrets,  divinely 
hopes. "  * 

His  introduction  to  literature  was  through  the 
readings  aloud  in  the  family  circle.  That  fine  old 
custom  was  in  the  Howells  family  an  institution, 
the  Book  of  Worship  and  the  Heavenly  Arcana 
being  displaced  on  week-day  evenings  by  the  Eng- 

9 My  Year  in  a  Log-Cabin  (1893),  p.  7. 
p.  44. 


14  William  Dean  Ho  wells 

lish  poets.  His  education  was  completed  in  the 
printing-office,  the  exactions  of  the  trade  standing 
him  in  lieu  of  school  discipline. 

His  formal  schooling  was  irregular  in  the  ex 
treme,  and  he  set  but  little  value  on  it.  Few  men 
have  been  so  completely  self-educated  as  he.  His 
earliest  memory  was  of  a  sort  of  dame  school  in  a 
private  house.  Then  he  came  under  the  tutelage 
of  a  master,  who  gave  instruction  in  the  basement 
of  a  church.  Here  he  disgraced  himself  in  spell 
ing  and  arithmetic,  but  displayed  a  proficiency  in 
geography  which  he  long  after  confessed  to  have 
lost.  As  a  reward  for  his  attainments  in  that 
useful  science,  he  received  a  history  of  Lexington, 
Massachusetts,  which  flattered  him  immensely, 
although  he  was  vaguely  disappointed  in  the  book. 
At  a  private  school  known  as  the  Academy,  he 
studied  what  was  then  called  philosophy,  gather 
ing  valuable  bits  of  information  from  the  pictures, 
learning,  for  example,  that  "you  could  not  make  a 
boat  go  by  filling  her  sail  from  bellows  on 
board. "  10  He  did  not  see  why.  He  later  attended 
a  district,  or  public  school,  where  the  teacher  led 
the  life  of  an  executioner,  and  where  he  "lived  in 
an  anguish  of  fear."  n  It  was  here  that  he  dis 
covered  the  part  called  Prosody  in  the  back  of  his 
grammar,  and  was  delighted  to  find  that  "nature 
had  not  dealt  so  charily  with  him  concerning  the 
rules  of  prosody  as  the  rules  of  arithmetic."  12 

Prosody  was  at  once  put  into  practice  on  sub 
jects  drawn  from  a  book  on  Greek  mythology. 

19 A  Boy's  Town  (1890),  p.  55. 
"Jfetd.,  p.  60. 
.,  p.  61. 


The  Man  15 

He  even  essayed  a  tragedy  in  the  meter  of  The 
Lady  of  the  Lake,  one  of  the  books  his  father  had 
read  aloud  to  the  family.  The  plot,  based  upon 
the  history  of  Julius  Caesar,  as  recounted  by  Gold 
smith,  featured  the  tyrannical  teacher  in  the  role 
of  the  great  dictator,  and  was  intended  to  afford 
the  school-boy  conspirators  with  an  opportunity 
to  wreak  their  vengeance  in  a  sufficiently  bloody 
manner.  The  piece,  its  author  informs  us,  was 
never  acted,  owing  to  some  difficulty  about  the 
hayloft. 

His  real  masters,  not  only  during  boyhood  but 
for  long  after,  were  the  authors  he  came  to  know. 
His  early  reading  was  a  kind  of  worship,  the 
adoration  of  one  god  after  another,  the  denial  of 
one  creed  in  order  to  subscribe  to  the  next.  "To 
give  an  account  of  one's  reading, "  he  begins  My 
Literary  Passions,  "is  in  some  sort  to  give  an 
account  of  one's  life"; 13  and  with  him  this  is  to 
give  it  in  the  truest,  if  not  the  only  sort.  The 
simple  annals  of  his  youth  are  made  golden  by 
books,  ever  more  books.  Only  one  who  has  felt  in 
some  measure  the  same  transport  can  share  with 
him  his  ecstasies  over  a  box  of  imported  volumes 
with  their  saffron-colored  paper  covers: 

"The  paper  and  the  ink  had  a  certain  odor 
which  was  sweeter  to  me  than  the  perfumes  of 
Araby.  The  look  of  the  type  took  me  more  than 
the  glance  of  a  girl,  and  I  had  a  fever  of  longing 
to  know  the  heart  of  the  book,  which  was  like  a 
lover's  passion."14 

The  grand  passions  of  his  boyhood  were  three : 

"My  Literary  Passions  (1895),  p.  1. 
u  Ibid.,  p.  140. 


16  William  Dean  Howells 

Goldsmith,  Cervantes,  and  Irving.  Goldsmith's 
histories  of  Greece  and  Borne  were  precious  mines 
of  knowledge;  The  Deserted  Village  became 
an  established  favorite  at  the  readings  by  the 
home  fireside;  and  The  Vicar  of  Wakefield  re 
mained  for  him  1 1  one  of  the  most  modern  novels ; 
that  is  to  say,  one  of  the  best."  15  Goldsmith  he 
finds  endeared  to  us  by  his  kindness  and  gentle 
ness;  these  are  what  "make  him  our  contempo 
rary."  "They  are  the  source  of  all  refinement," 
he  explains,  "and  I  do  not  believe  that  the  best 
art  of  any  kind  exists  without  them."16 

His  affection  for  Cervantes  was  more  ardent; 
and  although  he  never  gave  us  the  biography  he 
promised  at  the  age  of  fifteen,  the  passion  was  a 
lasting  one.  "To  this  day,"  he  confessed  at  the 
age  of  fifty-eight,  "I  cannot  meet  a  Spanish  man 
without  clothing  him  in  something  of  the  honor 
and  worship  I  lavished  upon  Cervantes  when  I 
was  a  child."17  The  Ingenious  Gentleman  of 
La  Mancha  was  his  Robinson  Crusoe.  He  first 
heard  the  story  from  his  father,  who  some  time 
later  presented  him  with  the  book,  "the  most 
wonderful  and  delightful  book  in  the  world,"18 
two  stout  little  volumes  in  calf,  destined  to  become 
his  inseparable  companions.  In  fact,  he  could 
remember  no  time  during  his  boyhood  when  he 
was  not  reading  them,  and  in  his  fifties  he  found 
that  in  what  formed  the  essential  greatness  of  the 
work,  it  seemed  to  him  greater  than  ever.  What 
forms  its  greatness  is  its  "free  and  simple  design, 

"My  Literary  Passions  (1895),  p.  16. 
"Ibid.,  p.  17. 
"Hid.,  p.  23. 
"Ifctd.,  p.  21. 


The  Man  17 

where  event  follows  event  without  the  fettering 
control  of  intrigue,  but  where  all  grows  naturally 
out  of  character  and  conditions. ' ' 1Q 

The  third  of  the  great  friends,  Washington 
Irving,  was  endeared  to  him  early  in  life  through 
the  charm  of  the  Spanish  books,  the  Conquest  of 
Granada  and  The  Alhambra.  He  was  unable  to 
share  his  father's  amusement  in  the  Knicker 
bocker  History  of  New  York,  but  he  liked  The 
Legend  of  Sleepy  Hollow  and  Rip  Van 
Winkle.  The  Life  of  Goldsmith  he  very  much  pre 
ferred  to  the  more  authoritative  one  by  Forster, 
finding  in  it,  so  closely  were  those  genial  tempers 
allied,  a  "deeper  and  sweeter  sense  of  Gold 
smith.  "20 

In  1851,  at  the  age  of  fourteen,  he  went  to 
Columbus,  his  father  being  engaged  there  as  a 
reporter  of  legislative  proceedings,  and  became  a 
compositor  in  the  office  of  the  Ohio  State  Journal, 
at  a  salary  of  four  dollars  a  week.  Meanwhile, 
he  had  been  rapidly  losing  interest  in  having 
things  read  to  him,  coming  to  read  more  and  more 
himself,  so  that  he  could  let  his  fancy  roam  at 
leisure.  He  was  beginning  to  read  with  a  literary 
sense,  that  is,  he  explains,  with  a  sense  of  the 
author.  The  characters  in  books  were  ceasing  to 
affect  him  as  real  persons,  although  he  had  mo 
ments  of  intimacy  with  Ulysses — for  he  had  at 
last  read  Pope's  Homer.  He  had  become  ac 
quainted  with  Scott's  prose,  too,  by  this  time; 
but  it  never  became  a  passion.  One  is  tempted, 
associating  his  coldness  toward  Scott's  romances 

"My  Literary  Passions  (1895).  p.  26. 
"Ibid.,  p.  22. 


i8  William  Dean  Howells 

with  his  devotion  to  Don  Quixote,  to  pronounce 
the  lad  already  a  realist;  but  he  assures  us  that 
his  actual  interest  was  in  literature,  not  in  life. 
"I  was  growing  more  literary, "  he  insists,  "and 
less  human. " 

One  may  believe  that  for  a  boy  of  fourteen  he 
was  becoming  very  literary  indeed,  to  prefer 
Pope's  pastorals  to  Ivanhoe.  The  fact  is,  he  be 
came  passionately  enamoured  of  purling  brooks, 
finny  tribes,  enameled  meads,  fleecy  cares,  feath 
ered  choirs,  and  aerial  audiences.  He  essayed  an 
infinite  number  of  imitations,  most  of  which  never 
reached  completion.  "They  all  stopped  some 
where  about  half  way,"  he  recollects.  "My 
swains  could  not  think  of  anything  more  to  say, 
and  the  merits  of  my  shepherdesses  remained  un 
decided."21 

I  With  all  his  later  aversion  to  the  romantic, 
I  Howells  kept  a  fondness  for  the  artificialities  of 
'  the  pseudo-romanticism  of  the  classic  period, 
^  which  make  no  misleading  pretensions  to  reality. 
However  seriously  the  ardent  swains  and  their 
Dresden  china  shepherdesses  may  have  been  taken 
in  their  day,  the  modern  reader  is  not  tempted  to 
confuse  their  Arcadia  with  any  quarter  of  the 
habitable  globe.  Like  the  extravaganza  in  the 
theatre,  they  may  be  relished,  not  as  the  piece  de 
resistance,  but  as  dainty  confections  after  the 
feast — by  those  who  are,  as  Howells  was  wont  to 
say,  "in  the  joke  of  it."  When  he  came  to  read 
Italian  literature,  he  found  Tasso's  Aminta  and 
the  Pastor  Fidp  of  Guarini  "divinely  excellent 
artificialities.^  | He  was  rather  glad,  furthermore, 

*My  Literary  Passwns  (1895),  p.  49. 


The  Man  19 

to  have  had  Pope  for  an  idol,  because  in  imi 
tating  him  he  could  not  help  imitating  his  method 
of  composition,  which  was  essentially  the  method 
of  intelligence/1  Further  than  this,  he  was  glad 
to  have  acquainted  himself  with  the  poetry  of 
Pope;  for,  he  thought,  with  all  that  we  may  say 
against  it,  it  was,  as  a  mood  of  literature,  the 
perfect  expression  of  a  mood  of  civilization. 

After  the  one  winter  in  Columbus,  the  family 
moved  to  Ashtabula,  in  the  northeastern  part  of 
the  state.  It  was  the  next  removal,  however,  from 
Ashtabula  to  the  county  seat  at  Jefferson,  that 
inaugurated  for  the  literary  youth  a  period  of 
further  enlightenment,  a  period  from  which  he 
dated  his  interest  in  contemporary  writers,  and  in 
periodicals,  and  during  which  he  read  his  first 
literary  criticism.  His  reading  was  turned  in  new 
directions  largely  through  the  influence  of  a  series 
of  personal  friendships,  some  of  them  fortunately 
with  men  older  than  he,  and  of  different  tastes  and 
ideals. 

The  first  important  event  of  this  period  was 
his  suddenly,  ' '  without  notice  or  reason, ' ' 22  giv 
ing  his  heart  to  Shakespeare ;  and  although  Irving, 
Goldsmith,  and  Cervantes  kept  their  old  altars, 
the  worship  of  the  new  divinity  "went  to  heights 
and  lengths  that  it  had  reached  with  no  earlier 
idol. ' ' 23  He  revelled  with  Falstaff  in  somewhat 
the  personal  intimacy  of  older  days,  before  he  had 
become  literary;  and  he  drew  from  the  dramas 
many  of  the  ideas  he  was  to  hold  most  persistently 
through  later  years,  after  he  had  become  human. 

"My  Literary  Passions  (1895),  p.  71. 
"  Ibid,,  p.  73. 


2O  William  Dean  Howells 

These  are  concerned  chiefly  with  those  qualities 
by  which,  in  his  droll  way,  he  finally  characterized 
modernity,  that  is  to  say,  the  qualities  that  make 
literature  truly  great.  As  Goldsmith  is  our  con 
temporary  by  virtue  of  his  inherent  purity,  as 
Cervantes  is  modern  and  realistic  in  his  spacious 
form,  unhampered  by  the  trivialities  of  plot,  so 
Shakespeare  is  one  with  us  in  his  matchless  indi 
vidualizing  of  character,  in  his  mingling  of  tears 
and  joy,  just  as  we  find  them  mingled  in  life,  and 
in  the  humor  that  pervades  his  work.  Thus 
Howells  describes  his  first  impression  of  the  real 
ity  of  Shakespeare 's  world : 

"  There  I  found  a  world  appreciable  to  experi 
ence,  a  world  inexpressibly  vaster  and  grander 
than  the  poor  little  affair  that  I  had  only  known  a 
small  obscure  corner  of,  and  yet  of  one  quality 
with  it,  so  that  I  could  be  as  much  at  home  and 
citizen  in  it  as  where  I  actually  lived.  There  I 
found  joy  and  sorrow  mixed,  and  nothing  abstract 
or  typical,  but  everything  standing  for  itself  and 
not  for  some  other  thing.  Then,  I  suppose  it  was 
the  interfusion  of  humor  through  so  much  of  it, 
that  made  it  all  precious  and  friendly. ' ' 24 

The  first  literary  criticism  that  he  read  was 
Lowell's ;  and  he  believed  it  implicitly,  feeling  that 
any  question  of  it  would  be  blasphemy.  He  obe 
diently  made  his  farewells  to  Pope,  but  he  could 
not  find  it  in  his  heart  to  like  Spenser.  For 
Chaucer  he  came  to  have  a  personal  attachment, 
finding  him  very  like  Cervantes  in  "a  certain 
sweet  and  cheery  humanity. "  25 

"My  Literary  Passions  (1895),  p.  77. 
"Hid.,  p.  108. 


The  Man  21 

He  became  acquainted  with  Dickens  through  an 
old  English  organ  builder,  and  revelled  with  de 
light  in  the  pages  of  that  fascinating  story-teller, 
who  then  "  colored  the  parlance  of  the  English- 
speaking  race,  and  formed  upon  himself  every 
minor  talent  attempting  fiction. "  26  His  later  re 
action  to  the  world  of  Dickens  is  thus  recorded : 

"The  basis  of  his  work  is  the  whole  breadth 
and  depth  of  humanity  itself.  It  is  helplessly  ele 
mental,  but  it  is  not  the  less  grandly  so,  and  if  it 
deals  with  the  simpler  manifestations  of  charac 
ter,  character  affected  by  the  interests  and  pas 
sions  rather  than  the  tastes  and  preferences,  it 
certainly  deals  with  the  larger  moods  through 
them.  .  .  .  His  view  of  the  world  and  of  society, 
though  it  was  very  little  philosophized,  was  in 
stinctively  sane  and  reasonable,  even  when  it  was 
most  impossible.  "27 

From  Dickens  he  gained  a  conception  of  essen 
tial  democracy,  presided  over  by  a  just  and  ever- 
watchful  Providence,  and  it  made  him  very  happy 
to  believe  in  such  a  world,  even  though  he  found 
it  already  contradicted  by  his  own  small  experi 
ence.  He  wished  it  true,  and  he  found  it  true 
"with  that  truth  which  is  at  the  bottom  of 
things/' 28  "In  that  world  of  his,"  he  goes  on  to 
relate,  "in  the  ideal  world,  to  which  the  real  world 
must  finally  conform  itself,  I  dwelt  among  the 
shows  of  things,  but  under  a  Providence  that 
governed  all  things  to  a  good  end,  and  where 
neither  wealth  nor  birth  could  avail  against  virtue 
or  right.  "28 

"My  Literary  Passions  (1895),  p.  93.  "Ibid.,  p.  98. 

*Ilid.,  p.  96. 


22  William  Dean  Howells 

He  was  introduced  to  Thackeray  also  by  the 
old  organ  builder,  and  by  this  time  the  literary 
sense,  attained  when  he  began  to  imitate  Pope, 
had  been  completely  acquired.  In  fact,  his 
absorption  in  literature  as  divorced  from  life 
reached  its  culmination  during  the  period  of  his 
infatuation  with  Thackeray — Thackeray,  of  all 
novelists  "the  most  thoroughly  and  profoundly 
imbued  with  literature, ' ' 29  who  speaks  in  ink,  as 
he  expresses  it,  not  in  blood,  as  do  Dickens  and 
Tolstoi.  "Literature,  not  life,  was  my  aim,"  is 
Ho  wells'  confession,  "and  to  reproduce  it  was 
my  joy  and  my  pride. ' ' 30  He  is  at  some  pains  to 
analyze  his  fascination  with  Thackeray  *s  superior 
airs  toward  both  literature  and  life : 

< '  What  flatters  the  worldly  pride  in  a  young  man 
is  what  fascinates  him  with  Thackeray.  With  his 
air  of  looking  down  on  the  highest,  and  confidently 
inviting  you  to  be  of  his  company  in  the  seat  of  the 
scorner,  he  is  irresistible ;  his  very  confession  that 
he  is  a  snob,  too,  is  balm  and  solace  to  the  reader 
who  secretly  admires  the  splendors  he  affects  to 
despise.  His  sentimentality  is  also  dear  to  the 
heart  of  youth,  and  the  boy  who  is  dazzled  by  his 
satire  is  melted  by  his  easy  pathos.  Then,  if  the 
boy  has  read  a  good  many  other  books,  he  is  taken 
with  that  abundance  of  literary  turn  and  allusion 
in  Thackeray;  there  is  hardly  a  sentence  but  re 
minds  him  that  he  is  in  the  society  of  a  great 
literary  swell,  who  has  read  everything,  and  can 
mock  or  burlesque  life  right  and  left  from  the 
literature  always  at  his  command.  At  the  same 
time  he  feels  his  mastery,  and  is  abjectly  grateful 

» My  Literary  Passion*  (1895),  p.  137. 
»Il>id.,  p.  147. 


The  Man  23 

to  him  in  his  own  simple  love  of  the  good  for  his 
patronage  of  the  unassuming  virtues.  It  is  so 
pleasing  to  one's  vanity,  and  so  safe,  to  be  of  the 
master's  side  when  he  assails  those  vices  and  foi 
bles  which  are  inherent  in  the  system  of  things, 
and  which  one  can  contemn  with  vast  applause  so 
long  as  one  does  not  attempt  to  undo  the  con 
ditions  they  spring  from."31 

This  boy  did  not  know  then,  nor  for  long  after 
ward,  "that  society,  as  we  have  it,  was  neces 
sarily  a  sham,"32  that  snobbishness  was  not 
something  it  was  possible  to  reach  and  cure  by 
ridicule.  "Now,"  he  said  later,  "I  know  that  so 
long  as  we  have  social  inequality  we  shall  have 
snobs  .  .  .  that  it  is  futile  to  spurn  them,  or  lash 
them  for  trying  to  get  on  in  the  world,  and  that 
the  world  is  what  it  must  be  from  the  selfish 
motives  that  underlie  our  economic  life." 33 

Among  the  contemporary  poets,  he  never  ceased 
to  read  and  admire  Longfellow.  Browning  and 
Tennyson  he  came  to  know  at  the  age  of  eighteen, 
soon  after  the  inevitable  nervous  breakdown, 
during  which  he  consoled  himself  with  being  a 
martyr  to  literature.  Tennyson  became  such 
another  passion  as  Longfellow,  but  nothing  of 
Browning  except  The  Ring  and  the  Book  seems 
to  have  made  any  great  appeal  to  him.  "One 
need  not  question  the  greatness  of  Browning," 
he  admits,  "in  owning  the  fact  that  the  two  poets 
of  his  day  who  pre-eminently  voiced  their  gen 
eration  were  Tennyson  and  Longfellow;  though 
Browning,  like  Emerson,  is  probably  now  more 

31  My  Literary  Passions  (1895),  p.  129.  *  Ibid.,  p.  131. 

.,  p.  130. 


24  William  Dean  Howells 

modern  than  either. ' ' 34  Tennyson 's  Maud,  which 
he  read  first,  he  thought  indeed  pre-eminently 
voiced  his  generation.  "I  suppose, "  he  con 
tinues,  "that  at  the  time  he  wrote  Maud  he  said 
more  fully  what  the  whole  English-speaking  race 
were  then  dimly  longing  to  utter  than  any  English 
poet  who  has  ever  lived. ' ' 34 

During  the  winter  of  1856,  Howells  was  in 
Columbus  doing  legislative  reporting  for  the  Cin 
cinnati  Gazette — and  reading  in  the  State  Library. 
In  the  spring  he  refused  an  offer  of  a  thousand 
dollars  a  year  as  city  editor  of  the  Gazette,  fear 
ing  that  his  time  for  reading  would  be  curtailed. 
This  act  of  devotion  was  soon  to  cause  him  regret, 
when  he  came  to  realize  the  vital  connection  be 
tween  literature  and  experience.  For  the  hour  of 
the  supreme  passion  was  at  hand,  the  passion  that 
was  to  liberate  him  forever.  It  was  time  for  the 
Spanish  idols  to  be  placed  in  temporary  retire 
ment,  their  shrines  occupied;  by  German  gods. 
He  was  at  last  to  learn  at  the  feet  of  Heine  that 
his  ideal  of  literature  was  false. 

/  "I  had  supposed,  with  the  sense  at  times  that 
I  was  all  wrong,  that  the  expression  of  literature 
must  be  different  from  the  expression  of  life; 
that  it  must  be  an  attitude,  a  pose,  with  something 
of  state  or  at  least  of  formality  in  it ;  that  it  must 
be  this  style,  and  not  that ;  that  it  must  be  like  that 
sort  of  acting  which  you  know  is  acting  when  you 
see  it  and  never  mistake  for  reality. "ffj  "He  un 
did  my  hands,  which  I  had  taken  so  much  pains  to 
tie  behind  my  back,  and  he  forever  persuaded  me 

94  My  Literary  Passions  (1895),  p.  155. 
KIbid.,  p.  171. 


The  Man  25 

that  though  it  may  be  ingenious  and  surprising 
to  dance  in  chains,  it  is  neither  pretty  nor  use 
ful.  "36 

In  1859,  Howells,  as  news  editor  of  the  Ohio 
State  Journal,  began  the  period  of  which  he 
speaks  as  the  heyday  of  his  life.  He  met  many 
people  in  Columbus  society  with  whom  he  could 
talk  literature  to  his  full  content;  a  world  of 
amusement  not  hitherto  enjoyed  was  thrown  open 
to  him ;  and  his  friendship  with  J.  J.  Piatt  ripened 
into  intimacy.  It  was  in  collaboration  with  Piatt 
that  in  the  following  year  he  formally  began  his 
literary  career.  But  of  more  service  in  his  ad 
vancement  than  the  Poems  of  Two  Friends,  which 
they  produced  between  them,  was  a  campaign  life 
of  Lincoln.  This  work  won  for  him  the  post  of 
United  States  Consul  to  Venice,  enabling  him  to 
spend  the  four  years  of  our  Civil  War  in  that 
peaceful  city,  studying  the  Italian  language  and 
literature. 

Before  going  abroad,  he  employed  the  imme 
diate  proceeds  of  his  book  in  making  a  visit  to  the 
East,  approaching  New  England  by  way  of  Niag 
ara  and  the  Canadian  rivers  and  cities  where  he 
was  to  lay  the  scene  of  his  first  fictions.  The 
young  litterateur  was  by  this  time  confirmed  in 
the  ways  of  hero-worship,  and  recalling  how  truly 
this  was  the  Augustan  age  of  New  England  let 
ters,  we  can  imagine  the  raptures  with  which  this 
"  passionate  pilgrim  from  the  West  approached 
his  holy  land. "  37  Thus  in  a  few  fervid  strokes  he 
sketches  the  group : 

MMy  Literary  Passions   (1895),  p.  174. 
"Literary  Friends  and  Acquaintance  (1900),  p.  18. 


26  William  Dean  Howells 

"Lowell  was  then  in  perfect  command  of  those 
varied  forces  which  will  long,  if  not  lastingly, 
keep  him  in  memory  as  first  among  our  literary 
men,  and  master  in  more  kinds  than  any  other 
American.  Longfellow  was  in  the  fulness  of  his 
world- wide  fame,  and  in  the  ripeness  of  the  beau 
tiful  genius  which  was  not  to  know  decay  while 
life  endured.  Emerson  had  emerged  from  the 
popular  darkness  which  had  so  long  held  him  a 
hopeless  mystic,  and  was  shining  a  lambent  star 
of  poesy  and  prophecy  at  the  zenith.  Hawthorne, 
the  exquisite  artist,  the  unrivalled  dreamer,  whom 
we  still  always  liken  this  one  and  that  one  to, 
whenever  this  one  or  that  one  promises  greatly 
to  please  us,  and  still  leave  without  a  rival,  with 
out  a  companion,  had  lately  returned  from  his 
long  sojourn  abroad,  and  had  given  us  the  last  of 
the  incomparable  romances  which  the  world  was 
to  have  perfect  from  his  hand.  Doctor  Holmes 
had  surpassed  all  expectations  in  those  who  most 
admired  his  brilliant  humor  and  charming  poetry 
by  the  invention  of  a  new  attitude  if  not  a  new 
sort  in  literature.  The  turn  that  civic  affairs  had 
taken  was  favorable  to  the  widest  recognition  of 
Whittier's  splendid  lyrical  gift;  and  that  heart  of 
fire,  doubly  snow-bound  by  Quaker  tradition  and 
Puritan  environment,  was  penetrating  every  gen 
erous  breast  with  its  flamy  impulses,  and  fusing  all 
wills  in  its  noble  purpose.  Mrs.  Stowe,  who  far 
outfamed  the  rest  as  the  author  of  the  most  re 
nowned  noyeliever  written,  was  proving  it  no  acci 
dent  or  miracle  by  the  fiction  she  was  still  writ 
ing."38 

Introducing  the  timid  pilgrim  to  this  renowned 
circle,  Lowell,  although  not  yet  at  the  zenith  of  his 

"  Literary  Friends  and  Acquaintance  (1900),  p.  10. 


The  Man  27 

prestige,  played  the  good  angel.39  He  had  already 
accepted  some  of  Howells'  verses  for  the  Atlantic, 
after  holding  them  long  enough  to  ascertain  that 
they  were  not  translations  from  Heine,  and  was 
later  to  open  for  him  the  columns  of  the  North 
American  Review.  His  welcome  and  his  friend 
ship  through  succeeding  years  not  only  color  the 
"Studies  of  Lowell "  but  shed  their  glow  over  the 
whole  of  Howells'  retrospect  of  American  author 
ship. 

It  is  saying  a  great  deal  to  suggest  that  in  a 
gallery  of  portraits  such  as  compose  the  Literary 
Friends  and  Acquaintance f  Lowell's  is  the  most 
distinguished.  "The  White  Mr.  Longfellow ' ' 40 
is  certainly  a  more  beautiful  figure,  but  there  is  a 
charm  of  intimacy  in  which  without  intrusion  we 
are  made  to  see  Lowell  with  pipe  and  slippers,  in 
which  without  gossip  he  is  almost  literally  made 
to  live.  In  this  characteristic  lies  the  peculiar 
felicity  of  the  book  as  a  whole,  and  I  wonder 
whether  we  have  another  volume  of  literary  remi 
niscence  so  happy  in  its  kind.  The  ego  looms 
large ;  yet  was  ever  egoism  so  modest,  so  faithful 
to  its  illuminative  purpose  I  And  was  candor  ever 
so  delicate,  so  fearful  of  conveying  the  unintended 
slight  or  giving  a  wound!  One  hazards  nothing 
in  predicting  for  such  a  record  a  life  at  least  as 

39  For  a  selection  from  correspondence  showing  Lowell 's  some 
times  undiscriminating  fondness  for  his  prot4g6,  see  an  article 
on  "Lowell  and  Howells"  in  Harper's  Weekly  (1902),  46:101. 

^"Something  that  Bjornstjerne  Bjornson  wrote  to  me  when 
he  was  leaving  America  after  a  winter  in  Cambridge,  comes 
nearer  suggesting  Longfellow  than  all  my  talk.  The  Norsemen, 
in  the  days  of  their  stormy  and  reluctant  conversion,  used  always 
to  speak  of  Christ  as  the  White  Christ,  and  Bjornson  said  in  his 
letter,  'Give  my  love  to  the  White  Mr.  Longfellow.'  " — Literary 
Friends  and  Acquaintance  (1900),  p.  208. 


28  William  Dean  Howells 

long  as  there  shall  be  any  interest  in  the  men  who 
made  New  England  great  in  our  literature. 

Before  linking  his  destiny  with  the  patriciate  of 
Boston  and  Cambridge,  however,  he  lived  the  Ital 
ian  years.  Of  these,  he  has  given  account  in  the 
chapter  "Roundabout  to  Boston "  of  the  Literary 
Friends  and  Acquaintance,  and  in  My  Literary 
Passions,  but  chiefly,  of  course,  in  the  golden  book 
— Venetian  Life.  Notwithstanding  the  fascina 
tion  of  Dante  and  mediaeval  Italy,  his  interest 
turned  more  and  more  toward  the  observation  of 
men  and  books  of  the  day.  And,  discovering  the 
weakness  of  Italian  fiction  as  a  record  of  contem 
porary  life,  he  devoted  himself  eagerly  to  the 
drama.  Of  all  the  dramatists,  he  loved  Goldoni 
best,  and  never  ceased  to  regard  him  as  the  first 
of  the  realists ;  for  although  he  lived  in  the  eight 
eenth  century,  he  lived  to  fight  hand-to-hand  with 
eighteenth-century  romanticism.  "  Because  I 
have  loved  the  truth  in  art  above  all  things, "  he 
says,  "I  fell  instantly  and  lastingly  in  love  with 
Carlo  Goldoni. " 41 

Three  weeks  after  his  return  from  abroad  he 
came  to  New  York  with  the  intent  to  resume  jour 
nalism.  He  wrote  editorials  for  different  papers, 
mostly  for  the  Times  and  the  Tribune,  and  some 
time  in  November  accepted  a  salaried  position  on 
the  Nation,  which  had  been 'using  his  Italian  ma 
terial.  The  following  year  (1866)  he  wrent  to 
Boston  as  assistant  editor  to  James  T.  Fields  on 
the  Atlantic  Monthly.  He  was  evidently  given  a 
large  hand  in  the  conduct  of  the  magazine,  and 
on  the  retirement  of  Fields,  in  1872,  became,  at  the 

*My  Literary  Passions  (1895),  p.  208. 


The  Man  29 

age  of  thirty-five,  its  editor-in-chief.  Each  of 
these  years  of  editorial  promotion  was  signalized 
by  a  corresponding  advance  in  his  reputation  as 
an  author.  The  success  of  Venetian  Life  in  book 
form  (1866)  was  as  instant  as  it  has  been  lasting, 
and  the  reception  accorded  Their  •Wedding  Jour 
ney,  his  first  novel,  in  1872,  determined  his  career 
as  a  writer  of  fiction.  Continuing  with  the  maga 
zine,  he  won  not  only  the  especial  devotion  of  the 
young  but  the  esteem  of  nearly  all  the  major 
talents  of  the  day,  until,  as  Thomas  Wentworth 
Higginson  remarked  in  1879,42  his  leading  con 
temporaries  were  his  contributors,  although  he 
had  already  as  assistant  editor  established  the 
friendships  that  were  to  be  lifelong  with  Henry 
James  and  Mark  Twain,  forming  with  them  what 
the  English  reviewers  called  a  mutual  admiration 
society. 

In  1881,  after  fifteen  years  of  service,  he  reT] 
signed  his  editorship  to  Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich 
in  order  to  devote  himself  exclusively  to  the  writ 
ing  of  fiction,  accepting  a  yearly  salary  from 
James  E.  Osgood,  who  disposed  of  the  serial 
rights  mostly  to  the  Century.  After  the  failure  of 
Osgood,  he  joined  the  Harper  forces,  and  in  1885 
moved  to  New  York.  His  contract  with  Messrs. 
Harper  stipulated  fiction  only,  but  with  some  per 
suasion  he  was  induced  to  take  charge  of  "The 
Editor's  Study"  (1886),  in  which  he  waged  his 
six  years'  critical  warfare  on  romanticism.  His 
contract  terminated,  he  became  for  a  short  time 
editor  of  the  Cosmopolitan  (1892),  but  eventually 

"Short  Studies  of  American  Authors  (Ed.  1906),  p.  32.    N.  Y., 
Longmans,  Green. 


30  William  Dean  Howells 

reunited  his  fortunes  with  the  house  of  Harper. 
They  remained  his  official  publishers,  though  he 
occasionally  serialized  a  story  elsewhere;  and 
from  December,  1900,  until  the  time  of  his  death 
he  conducted  the  "Easy  Chair "  department  in 
iv_their  magazine.  New  York  was  the  home  of  his 
later  years,  although  there  were  periods  of  travel 
and  residence  abroad,  summers  in  New  England, 
and  winters  in  Florida ;  and  in  New  York  he  died 
on  May  11,  1920. 

The  literary  passions  of  later  years  were  for 
contemporary  writers,  largely  for  contemporary 
novelists  dedicated  to  realism.  At  the  time  he 
made  his  book  of  worship,  Howells  wished  that  he 
could  call  back  some  of  the  time  he  had  squan 
dered  on  the  classics ;  his  counsel  was  to  give  no 
time  to  old  literature  except  that  of  the  greatest 
masters.  All  that  one  can  get  from  minor  writers, 
he  maintained,  can  be  had  in  fuller  measure  and 
better  quality  from  the  few  really  great  ones. 
Preference  for  the  second-rate  he  regarded  as 
mainly  an  affectation  of  persons  wishing  to  dis 
tinguish  themselves  from  the  herd.  Schools  and 
periods  he  thought  should  be  left  to  the  scholar, 
whose  business  is  concerned  with  them;  and  he 
took  occasion  to  remind  the  scholar  that  reading 
done  in  order  to  become  familiar  with  a  period  is 
literally  a  business,  a  professional  duty,  in  no  way 
concerned  with  the  love  of  literature,  which  must 
be  a  passion,  not  a  duty.  ' '  Read  the  old  masters, ' ' 
he  advised,  "and  let  their  schools  go,  rather  than 
neglect  any  possible  master  of  your  own  time. 
Above  all,  I  would  not  have  any  one  read  an  old 
author  merely  that  he  might  not  be  ignorant  of 


The  Man  31 

him ;  that  is  most  beggarly,  and  no  good  can  come 
of  it."43 

In  his  extended  review  of  the  novel  in  English, 
the  two  volumes  of  Heroines  of  Fiction  (1901), 
he  finds  it  to  have  arrived  in  the  hands  of  Jane 
Austen  at  a  perfection  beyond  which  it  has  never 
gone.  George  Eliot  he  pronounces  the  greatest 
talent  after  the  Divine  Jane,  and  one  with  whom 
it  is  useless  to  compare  any  of  her  contemporaries 
except  Hawthorne,  or  any  who  come  after  except 
Thomas  Hardy. 

Howells'  salient  attitudes  in  his  survey  of  Con 
tinental  fiction  are  two :  a  reserve  that  amounts  to 
coldness  toward  the  French  realists  and  an  alle 
giance  that  verges  on  extravagance  to  the  Rus 
sian.  To  numerous  Scandinavian,  Spanish,  and 
Italian  novelists  he  has  played  the  admiring 
brother,  especially  feeling  his  kinship  with  the 
Spaniards  and  delighting  in  introducing  them  to 
his  American  readers  as  masters.  In  fighting 
romanticism,  he  took  his  weapons  from  their 
critics,  Palacio-Valdes  and  Emilia  Pardo-Bazan, 
rather  than  from  the  great  warriors  of  France, 
his  opinions  of  them  in  either  field  of  endeavor 
echoing  his  youthful  reverence  for  the  country 
men  of  Cervantes. 

The  imperfection  of  Howells'  French  sympa 
thies  is  the  more  remarkable  in  that  he  himself 
aimed  at  a  kind  of  experimental  novel  and  was  in 
all  matters  of  literary  handling  more  French  than 
English  or  Spanish  or  Russian.  To  Zola,  indeed, 
he  gives  some  very  high  praise,  pronouncing  him 
the  most  moral  of  the  French  novelists — the  near 
ly  Literary  Passions  (1895),  p.  228. 


32  William  Dean  Howells 

est  the  Russians  in  the  serious  handling  of  his 
material — and  acknowledging  his  "epic  great 
ness.  "  But  Balzac,  whom  such  diverse  moderns 
as  Henry  James  and  George  Moore  have  revered 
as  "the  master  of  us  all"  and  the  one  who  has 
"shown  greater  wings  of  mind  than  any  artist 
that  ever  lived/'  —Balzac  he  approaches  as  he 
does  Thackeray,  with  distended  and  quivering 
nostrils,  sniffing  the  air  for  the  first  scent  of  the 
"romanticistic,"  a  very  watch-dog  of  realism. 
And  he  was  finally  capable  of  pairing  him  off  with 
Bulwer!44 

What  he  failed  to  discover  in  the  French  real 
ists  he  found  in  the  Russian.  He  was  impressed 
by  the  conscientiousness  with  which  they  handled 
their  themes,  by  the  peculiar  compulsion  under 
which  they  detailed  all  aspects  of  human  nature 
with  equal  fidelity  and  with  equal  earnestness. 
The  awful  seriousness  of  their  quest  for  truth 
saddened  while  it  inspired  him.  His  "gay  Ameri 
can  horizons  were  bathed  in  the  vast  melancholy 
of  the  Slav,  patient,  agnostic,  trustful."  45  Yet  it 
was  with  a  "joyful  astonishment"46  at  the  per 
fection  of  art  that  he  read  Turgeniev — with  a  rap 
ture  inexpressible.  "I  cannot  describe  the  satis 
faction  his  work  gave  me,"  he  exclaims;  "I  can 
only  impart  some  sense  of  it,  perhaps,  by  saying 
that  it  was  like  a  happiness  I  had  been  waiting  for 
all  my  life,  and  now  it  had  come,  I  was  richly  con 
tent  forever. ' ' 47 

"Heroines  of  Fiction  (1901),  I,  p.  125. 
45  My  Literary  Passions  (1895),  p.  231. 
"Ibid.,  p.  230. 
"Ibid.,  p.  223. 


The  Man  33 

Having  pronounced  the  dramatic  method  of 
Turgeniev  "as  far  as  art  can  go,""48  he  was  to 
know  a  method  that  seemed  to  transcend  art  alto 
gether.  The  last,  the  supreme  passion  was  for 
Tolstoi,  whom  he  read  in  1886.  It  seemed  to  him 
unbelievable  that  Turgeniev,  with  the  transpar 
ency  of  his  style  and  his  perfect  concealment  of 
artifice,  had  not  said  the  last  word  aesthetically — 
in  everything  relating  to  expression.  But  here 
was  no  artifice  to  conceal;  here  was  a  style  of 
equal  transparency  divested  even  of  personality, 
quite  without  a  manner — at  least  Howells  pro 
fessed  himself  unable  to  describe  Tolstoi 's  man 
ner.  "There  are  plenty  of  novelists  to  tell  you 
that  their  characters  felt  and  thought  so  and  so, ' ' 
he  explains,  "but  you  have  to  take  it  on  trust; 
Tolstoi  alone  makes  you  know  how  and  why  it  was 
so  with  them  and  not  otherwise.  This  is  the  only 
trait  I  can  put  my  hand  on,  this  ability  to  show 
men  inwardly  as  well  as  outwardly. ' ' 49 

It  was  naturally  an  ethic  rather  than  an  aesthetic 

influence  that  Tolstoi  exercised  over  him,  coming 

so  late  in  life,  and  as  such  was  a  confirmatory 

rather  than  a  formative  one.    He  confesses  that 

he  no  longer  had  any  desire  to  imitate  the  methods 

of  another,  but  is  overcome  by  gratitude  in  esti- 

^^ftating  how  much  he  was  helped  in  the  other  way. 

This,  he  declares,  was  "as  much  as  one  merely 

I  human  being  can  help  another."  50    "He  has  been 

[to  me  the  final  consciousness,  which  he  speaks  of 

48  My  Literary  Passions  (1895),  p.  229. 
*IUd.,  p.  254. 
"Hid.,  p.  250. 


34  William  Dean  Howells 

so  wisely  in  his  essay  on  Life.  .  .  .  The  supreme 
art  in  literature  had  its  highest  effect  in  making 
me  set  art  forever  below  humanity. ' ' 51 
^  In  so  far  as  he  withholds  his  admiration  from 
any  of  Tolstoi's  work,  it  is  in  truth  to  his  convic 
tion  that  the  greatest  art  together  with  the  great 
est  moral  power  is  in  allowing  things  to  stand  for 
what  they  are  and  not  for  something  else.  He 
regrets  that  the  master's  moral  sense  can  over 
power  his  artistic  sense.  He  detects  the  false  note 
in  the  exegesis  to  The  Kreutzer  Sonata,  which 
would  apply  "to  marriage  the  lesson  of  one  evil 
marriage, " 52  as  surely  as  he  feels  the  power  of 
the  drama  unglossed  in  Anna  Karenina.  And 
when  Tolstoi  casts  his  precious  dramatic  gift  to 
the  winds,  lapsing  into  allegory,  when  his  tales 
become  parables,  Howells  asserts  that  the  simple 
pathos  of  Policoushka,  the  peasant  conscript,  is 
worth  more  to  him  than  myriads  of  parables. 
"The  Death  of  Ivan  Ilyitch,  the  Philistine  world 
ling,  "  he  insists,  "will  turn  the  hearts  of  many 
more  from  the  love  of  the  world  than  such  pale 
fables  of  early  Christian  life  as  Work  While  Ye 
Have  the  Light,"  52 

It  remains  to  close  the  account  of  Howells '  long 
discipleship  with  his  tribute  to  his  last  master, 
which  I  cannot  refrain  from  giving  entirely  in  his 
own  words,  since  he  has  compressed  it  into  a 
passage  as  notable  as  any  to  be  found  in  the  entire 
range  of  his  writings : 

"Tolstoi  awakens  in  his  reader  the  will  to  be  a 
man;  not  effectively,  not  spectacularly,  but  sim- 

61  My  Literary  Passions  (1895),  p.  258. 
"Ibid.,  p.  256. 


The  Man  35 

ply,  really.  He  leads  you  back  to  the  only  true 
ideal,  away  from  that  false  standard  of  the  gentle 
man,  to  the  Man  who  sought  not  to  be  distin 
guished  from  other  men,  but  identified  with  them, 
to  that  Presence  in  which  the  finest  gentleman 
shows  his  alloy  of  vanity,  and  the  greatest  genius 
shrinks  to  the  measure  of  his  miserable  egotism. 
I  learned  from  Tolstoi  to  try  character  and  motive 
by  no  other  test,  and  though  I  am  perpetually 
false  to  that  sublime  ideal  myself,  still  the  ideal 
remains  with  me,  to  make  me  ashamed  that  I  am 
not  true  to  it.  Tolstoi  gave  me  heart  to  hope  that 
the  world  may  yet  be  made  over  in  the  image  of 
Him  who  died  for  it,  when  all  Csesar's  things 
shall  be  rendered  unto  Caesar,  and  men  shall  come 
into  their  own,  into  the  right  to  labor  and  the 
right  to  enjoy  the  fruits  of  their  labor,  each  one 
master  of  himself  and  servant  to  every  other.  He 
taught  me  to  see  life  not  as  a  chase  of  a  forever 
impossible  personal  happiness,  but  as  a  field  for 
endeavor  toward  the  happiness  of  the  whole 
human  family;  and  I  can  never  lose  this  vision, 
however  I  close  my  eyes,  and  strive  to  see  my  own 
interest  as  the  highest  good.  He  gave  me  new 
criterions,  new  principles,  which,  after  all,  were 
those  that  are  taught  us  in  our  earliest  childhood, 
before  we  have  come  to  the  evil  wisdom  of  the 
world.  As  I  read  his  different  ethical  books,  What 
to  Do,  My  Confession,  and  My  Religion,  I  recog 
nized  their  truth  with  a  rapture  such  as  I  have 
known  in  no  other  reading,  and  I  rendered  them 
allegiance,  heart  and  soul,  with  whatever  sickness 
of  the  one  and  despair  of  the  other.  They  have  it 
yet,  and  I  believe  they  will  have  it  while  I  live."  53 

Viewing  at  large  the  course  of  Howells'  literary 

"My  Literary  Passions  (1895),  pp.  250-252. 


36  William  Dean  Howells 

passions, — from  the  great  trio  of  his  boyhood  to 
this  last  and  greatest  of  them  all, — we  see  his 
deference  to  masters  but  gradually  outgrown ;  but 
we  do  observe  the  acquisition  of  a  guiding  prin 
ciple  that  operates  in  the  selection  of  the  masters 
and  dictates  the  terms  of  allegiance  to  them,  the 
realistic  principle  to  which  he  was  awakened 
under  the  influence  of  Heine  and  by  which  he 
thenceforth  judged  books  more  and  more  accord 
ing  to  their  truth  or  their  falsity  to  life.  I  like  to 
dwell  upon  the  early  supremacy  of  Cervantes, 
significant  beyond  the  affection  for  Goldsmith  and 
Irving,  to  whom  he  was  allied  on  the  tempera 
mental  rather  than  the  philosophic  side  of  his 
nature,  and  lasting  long  after  he  had,  as  Lowell 
expressed  it,  sweat  the  Heine  out  of  his  bones. 
There  is  a  fitness  of  sentiment  in  the  circum 
stance  that  made  Don  Quixote,  with  its  spiritual, 
not  to  speak  of  its  formal  and  technical  leanings 
toward  modernity,  his  Robinson  Crusoe,  his  Ivan- 
hoe,  his  Arabian  Nights — a  fanciful  symbol  of  his 
own  souPs  adventures  toward  an  ideal  that  should 
reconcile  and  fuse  the  aesthetic  passion  with  the 
ethical,  of  his  deliverance  from  Pope  into  the 
hands  of  Heine,  from  literary  formalism  and 
pseudo-romance  to  the  poetry,  the  humor,  the 
poignant  sadness  of  our  familiar  world. 

The  period  of  his  infatuation  with  Pope  and 
Thackeray  was  a  time  of  subservience  to  literosity 
so  complete  as  to  presage  revolt ;  but  thereafter  it 
was  no  less  inevitable  that  Heine  should  be  him 
self  supplanted.  This  was  not  accomplished  in 
the  spectacular  manner  of  revolt,  but  happened 
when  the  young  Howells,  who  gave  himself  to  the 


The  Man  37 

cultivation  of  an  ironic  turn,  quick  though  less 
ghastly  than  Heine 's,  in  his  prose  and  the  reflec 
tion  of  a  brooding  sadness  in  his  verse,  acquired  a 
more  personal  seizure  of  the  poetry  and  the 
matter-of-fact  in  things,  and  a  subtler  mastery  of 
the  art  of  disillusion.  For  Heine  represents  with 
him  less  an  immediate  liberation  than  an  ideal  of 
artistic  freedom,  an  ideal  that  he  realized  for 
himself  later  and  in  which  he  was  more  and  more 
confirmed  by  contact  with  the  Continental  realists 
until  in  Tolstoi  he  came  at  once  upon  an  artist  of 
seeming  finality  and  a  philosophic  mind  large 
enough  to  accommodate  and  give  abiding-place  to 
all  his  ideas. 

Howells'  problems,  religious,  political,  and 
social,  are  habitually  reduced  to  such  an  aspect  of 
simple  humanity  and  justice  that  their  solutions, 
if  attainable  at  all  in  our  selfish  world,  must  be 
sought  in  some  such  condition  as  the  primitive 
Christian  brotherhood  preached  by  Tolstoi.  In  so 
far  as  he  suffered  discouragement  or  leaned 
toward  pessimism,  it  was  that  he  could  not  follow 
the  sublime  consistency  of  the  master  *s  way,  that 
with  an  ideal  end  so  similar  he  found  so  little 
virtue  in  any  immediate  means,  that  the  brother 
hood  of  man  being  still  beyond  the  bluest  distance, 
he  was  satisfied  with  nothing  less.  The  abundance 
of  his  experimental  data  on  communal  living,  for 
example,  only  convinced  him  that  the  democratic 
spirit  was  an  inward  one  and  the  slow  fruit  of 
racial  enlightenment.  His  belief  was  that  civili 
zation  had  no  reasonable  line  of  development  but 
toward  democracy,  and  that  the  world  was  actu 
ally  becoming  less  selfish  and  more  a  brotherhood 


38  William  Dean  Howells 

because  men  were  coming  to  know  each  other  bet 
ter.  His  faith  was  always  in  something  inwardly 
good  in  man,  something  that  now  and  again  he 
would  call  divine.  His  theology  was  of  works 
rather  than  of  faith ;  and  although  the  clergymen 
of  the  eighties  do  not  make  lovely  figures  in  his 
novels,  he  was  in  sympathy  with  them  in  their 
emphasis  on  Christ  as  a  life.  In  the  sphere  of 
personal  morals  he  was  especially  indebted  to 
Tolstoi.  The  supreme  truth  that  fiction  is  potent 
to  reveal  was  to  his  mind  the  futility  of  the  chase 
after  a  forever  impossible  personal  happiness; 
and  Anna  Karenina  is  its  Bible. 

Much  as  he  learned  from  the  Russians,  Howells, 
except  for  an  occasional  similarity  to  Turgeniev, 
did  not  imitate  them.  His  methods  are  more 
Gallic  than  Slavic,  while  his  themes  more  often 
parallel  those  of  Jane  Austen  and  George  Eliot 
than  those  of  Tolstoi  or  -Dostoievsky.  He  was 
above  all  things  else  true  to  himself,1  to  the  Ameri 
can  background  he  loved,  and  despite' the  Celt  in 
him,  to  our  common  Anglo-Saxon  heritage  of  sub 
stance.  Formative  forces  conspired  to  make  him 
democratic  and  humanitarian  rather  than  indi 
vidualistic,  national  rather  than  cosmopolitan, 
and,  in  his  sense  of  the  facts  of  life,  realistic 
rather  than  romantic.  The  result,  as  we  have  it  in 
the  Howells  novel  at  its  greatest,  is  above  any 
thing  else  of  its  kind  American;  and  above 
everything  American  of  comparable  excellence, 
humane. 

Finally,  to  characterize  the  Howells  works  as 
American  and  humane  is  to  describe  only  the 
gross  attributes  of  writings  remarkable  in  their 


The  Man  39 

special  tone  or  atmosphere.  But  I  do  not  know 
that  one  can  define  this  atmosphere  or  the  per 
sonality  from  which  it  emanates.  Its  clearest  dis 
tinction  lies  perhaps  in  the  combination  of  a  rig 
orously  impersonal  method,  shunning  equally 
sentimentality  and  satire,  with  an  intensely  per 
sonal  manner  and  with  irrepressible  humor;  so 
that  the  very  acuity  of  the  observation  he  brings 
to  bear  upon  the  human  scene  seems  to  condition 
the  romance  and  diversion  he  extracts  from  it. 
The  shrewder,  the  more  dispassionate  his  scru 
tiny,  the  greater  his  power  to  charm,  to  touch,  or 
to  amuse ;  the  more  transparent  his  fact,  the  more 
keenly  he  makes  his  reader  feel  the  sentiment,  the 
poetry,  the  humor,  or  the  sermon  that  resides  in 
it — and,  if  we  are  to  believe  him,  nowhere  else. 
Fhere  is  something  whimsical  in  this  and  some 
thing  gay ;  but  genial  is  a  simpler  and  better  word 
?or  his  most  habitual  and  most  fortunate  mood, 
jeniality  is  the  qudlite  maitresse.  And  that  for- 
ls  him  the  field  of  satire.  His  ventures  in  that 
direction  all  have  the  quality  of  his  father's  char 
acteristic  rebuke  on  a  certain  occasion  when 
Grandfather  Howells  had  reported  some  juvenile 
indecorum:  "Boys,  consider  yourselves  soundly 
thrashed." 


n 

HIS    CONCEPTION    OF    CRITICISM 

HOWELLS  united  in  himself  the  offices  of 
critic  and  creator  to  an  extraordinary  de 
gree.  Few  novelists  have  divulged  at  any  such 
length  the  ideals  and  methods  of  their  art,  and 
still  fewer  critics  have  written  novels  to  illustrate 
their  theories.  The  critical  office,  indeed,  he 
affected  to  despise,  and  by  far  the  greater  num 
ber  of  his  commentators  have  taken  him  at  his 
word.  They  have  thus  escaped  the  danger  of 
judging  his  work  too  exclusively  with  reference  to 
its  intention,  of  emphasizing  the  moralist  and 
social  philosopher  rather  than  the  artist.  But 
they  have  fallen  pretty  generally  into  the  con 
trary  extreme,  and  have  made  him  out  a  virtuoso 
without  a  message,  a  delicate  and  wholly  super 
ficial  artist,  a  faultless  delineator  of  tea-parties. 
Howells '  confession  of  faith  demands  examination 
chiefly  then  because  of  the  illumination  it  throws 
upon  his  own  work.  But  further  than  this,  it  fur 
nishes  an  explicit  guide  in  determining  his  status 
in  his  school,  and  a  key  to  his  influence  upon  the 
younger  generation.  For  his  influence  on  realism 
in  America,  owing  to  the  generally  authoritative 
character  of  his  position,  was  vastly  augmented 
by  the  particular  circumstance  that  made  him  a 
critical  authority.  The  present  chapter,  however, 

40 


His  Conception  of  Criticism        41 

will  go  still  further  and  deal  with  the  theory  un 
derlying  his  criticism,  and  is  naturally  written  on 
the  assumption  that  the  criticism  intrinsically  is 
not  a  negligible  part  of  his  contribution  to  our 
letters. 

The  documents  of  importance  begin  with  the 
papers  on  Italian  subjects,  supplemented  by  arti 
cles  and  reviews  on  his  New  England  friends  and 
acquaintance,  which  made  their  appearance  in  the 
North  American  Review  during  the  sixties.  His 
regular  book  notices  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly 
begin  with  the  June  number  of  1866  and  extend 
to  the  issue  for  January,  1881,  and  all  the  while 
he  was  contributing  other  matter  to  his  own  jour^ 
nal  as  well  as  to  the  North  American.  During  j 
the  year  following  his  retirement  from  the  Atlan 
tic  to  devote  himself  more  exclusively  to  the 
writing  of  fiction,  came  his  first  really  audible  and 
unmistakable  revolt  against  the  complacent 
regime  of  the  established  English  novelists,  the 
essay  on  Henry  James  in  the  Century  for  Novem 
ber,  1882.  Eichardson,  Fielding,  Dickens,  and 
Thackeray,  all  four  were  struck  at  a  blow — in  one 
sentence.  It  is  all  very  mild  to  us  now,  who 
understand  that  these  great  novelists  are  not  per 
fect  models  of  artistry.  But  in  those  days  such 
heterodoxy  precipitated  an  avalanche  of  indig 
nant  protest.  Three  years  later  the  battle  began 
in  earnest  with  Howells  quartered  in  the  "Edi 
tor's  Study "  of  Harper's  Magazine.  These 
papers  extend  from  January,  1886,  to  March, 
1892,  his  occupancy  of  the  "Easy  Chair "  dating  . 
from  December,  1900,  to  the  time  of  his  deathj 
Meanwhile,  he  contributed  voluminously  to  other 


42  William  Dean  Howells 

magazines,  his  reviews  in  the  North  American 
being  known  to  all  who  interest  themselves  in 
contemporary  literature. 

Fortunately,  the  best  of  his  work  has  already 
been  sifted  and  garnered  for  Messrs.  Harper. 
The  collections  include:  Modern  Italian  Poets: 
Essays  and  Versions  (1887),  his  only  comprehen 
sive  and  systematic  treatment  of  a  literary 
period;  Criticism  and  Fiction  (1891),  the  heart 
of  the  "Editor's  Study"  discussion  of  these  two 
topics;  My  Literary  Passions  (1895),  the  invalu 
able  literary  autobiography  which  appeared  origi 
nally  in  The  Ladies'  Home  Journal  from  Decem 
ber,  1892,  to  October,  1893 ;  Literary  Friends  and 
Acquaintance:  a  Personal  Retrospect  of  American 
Authorship  (1900);  Heroines  of  Fiction  (1901), 
two  volumes  collected  from  Harper's  Bazaar, 
May,  1900,  to  October,  1901,  a  survey  of  English 
and  American  fiction;  Literature  and  Life: 
Studies  (1902) ;  My  Mark  Twain:  Reminiscences 
and  Criticisms  (1910) ;  and  Imaginary  Interviews 
(1910). 

In  addition  to  those  books  of  which  Howells  is 
sole  author,  the  student  of  his  works  will  take 
account  of  the  great  number  in  which  he  has  col 
laborated,  mostly  by  way  of  critical  or  appreci 
ative  introduction.  His  connection  with  the  mis 
cellanies  and  collections  in  a  critical  capacity 
began  as  early  as  1860,  the  year  of  his  first  publi 
cations  in  book  form,  and  old  age  did  not  weary 
him  in  this  business,  for  which  he  was  extraor 
dinarily  gifted.  Those  which  by  all  means  de 
serve  a  reading  are  the  introductions  to  Mary  A. 
Craig's  translation  of  Verga's  The  House  by  the 


His  Conception  of  Criticism        43 

Medlar-Tree  (1890),  Hamlin  Garland's  Main- 
Travelled  Roads  (1893),  Galdos'  Dona  Perfecta 
(1896),  and  Paul  Laurence  Dunbar's  Lyrics  of 
Lowly  Life  (1896).  Among  introductions  more 
purely  appreciative  may  be  cited  that  to  Stuart 
Merrill's  exquisite  translation  of  Pastels  in  Prose 
(1890),  selected  from  the  French,  and  those  to  the 
various  volumes  of  "Harper's  Novelettes"; 
although  an  exception  should  be  made  in  favor  of 
the  significant  foreword  to  Southern  Lights  and 
Shadows  (1907)  in  that  series. 

Another  general  division  of  the  critical  com 
ment,  one  to  be  used  with  appropriate  caution,  of 
course,  is  constituted  by  the  fiction  itself.  There 
are  few  oims  novels  in  which  some  of  the  char 
acters  are  not  excessively  given  to  conversation  on 
literary  topics.  It  is  unnecessary  to  point  out  the 
danger  involved  in  crediting  Howells  with  opin 
ions  held  by  his  characters,  but  the  fact  is  that 
he  used  the  novel  deliberately  as  a  brief  for  real 
ism.  Consequently,  there  is  unusual  justification 
for  illustrating  his  philosophy  of  fiction  from  the 
dialogue  as  well  as  from  the  structure  of  his 
stories. 

The  first  question  pertinently  put  to  any  critic 
is  the  excessively  worn  one:  "What  of  the  func 
tion  of  criticism?  What  is  the  use  of  writing 
books  about  books'?  That  is,  what  do  you  conceive 
to  be  your  owrn  status  in  the  world  of  letters?" 
Opinions  on  this  matter  are  widely  at  variance, 
ranging  from  the  most  depreciatory  to  the  most 
exalted.  From  time  to  time  we  find  reviewers 
who,  under  cover  of  anonymity,  confess  their 
unworthiness  of  any  sort  of  literary  standing. 


44  William  Dean  Howells 

Others,  of  whom  Wordsworth,  unmindful  of  his 
own  distinguished  service,  is  a  classic  example, 
merely  stigmatize  as  an  inglorious  employment 
this  writing  of  books  about  books.  One  American 
writer,  Mr.  H.  C.  Vedder,  resenting  such  dis 
paragement  of  " unoriginal"  work,  asserts  his 
position  to  be  that  of  a  respectable  middle-man, 
a  purveyor  to  the  public  of  literary  merchandise.1 
So  great  a  critic  as  Matthew  Arnold,  while  hold 
ing  the  function  of  criticism  an  essential  one  in 
establishing  an  order  of  ideas,  in  creating  an 
intellectual  and  spiritual  atmosphere  indispen 
sable  for  the  highest  type  of  creative  work, 
thought:  "Everybody,  too,  would  be  willing  to 
admit,  as  a  general  proposition,  that  the  critical 
faculty  is  lower  than  the  inventive. ' ' 2  But  not 
everybody  would,  since  many  find  that  as  a  gen 
eral  proposition  the  matter  is  scarcely  intelligible. 
John  M.  Eobertson,  for  example,  refuses  to  allow 
a  general  distinction  between  the  critical  and  the 
creative,  pointing  out  the  propensity  of  the  latter 
term  to  dwindle  on  definition  to  the  mere  inven 
tion  of  stories  about  imaginary  persons;  and 
Eemy  de  Gourmont,  in  his  Promenades  Litfe- 
raires,  maliciously  inquires  why  Taine  should  be 
called  a  critic  and  Octave  Feuillet  a  creator. 
And,  indeed,  the  best  critical  intelligence  of  our 
time  and  country  seems  to  proceed  upon  the 
Nietzschian  dictum,  "To  value  is  to  create."  Mr. 
Paul  Elmer  More  has  said  substantially  that ;  and 
Mr.  Spingarn  has  been  lecturing  on  the  unity  of 

1  American  Writers  of  To-day  (1894),  p.  62. 
a ' '  The  Function  of  Criticism, ' '  in  Essays  in  Criticism,  First 
Series  (1910),  p.  3. 


His  Conception  of  Criticism        45 

genius  and  taste ;  and  Mr.  W.  C.  Brownell  in  his 
already  classic  brochure  on  Criticism  has  treated 
his  art  as  cognate  with  the  other  arts,  plastic  and 
literary. 

So  it  is  disconcerting  at  the  outset  to  find 
Howells  not  merely  clinging  as  does  Matthew 
Arnold  to  a  traditional  distinction,  not  merely 
lamenting  as  does  Wordsworth  the  waste  of  time 
and  energy  expended  in  "uncreative"  labor,  but 
declining  to  enforce  the  claims  of  a  respectable 
middle-man,  ranging  himself  to  all  appearances 
with  that  ignoble  class  first  mentioned.  We  had 
expected  hostility  toward  the  variety  of  criticism 
stigmatized  as  "academic,"  but  we  find  ourselves 
plunged  into  a  wholesale  arraignment  of  "the 
vested  interests  of  criticism, "  which  too  long  have 
been  permitted  to  insult  and  browbeat  the  young 
writer.  So  far  from  establishing  the  "current  of 
true  and  fresh  ideas "  of  which  Matthew  Arnold 
speaks  so  beautifully  and  so  confidently,  ideas 
with  which  the  creative  genius  may  deal  divinely, 
"presenting  them  in  the  most  effective  and  attrac 
tive  combinations,  making  beautiful  works  with 
them,"  3  criticism,  we  find,  "has  condemned  what 
ever  was,  from  time  to  time,  fresh  and  vital  in 
literature;  it  has  always  fought  the  new  good 
thing  in  behalf  of  the  old  good  thing;  it  has  in 
variably  fostered  the  tame,  the  trite,  the  nega 
tive."4  So  far  from  endeavoring  "to  see  the 
object  as  in  itself  it  really  is,"5  "criticism  does 

'"The  Function  of  Criticism, "  in  Essays  in  Criticism,  First 
Series  (1910),  p.  5. 

*  Criticism  and  Fiction  (1893),  p.  46. 

5 "The  Function  of  Criticism,"  in  Essays  in  Criticism,  First 
Series  (1910),  p.  6. 


46  William  Dean  Howells 

not  inquire  whether  a  work  is  true  to  life,  but 
tacitly  or  explicitly  compares  it  with  models,  and 
tests  it  by  them."  6  It  actually  "cannot  conceive 
of  the  original  except  as  the  abnormal."  7  So  far 
from  its  being  the  inevitable  precursor  of  true 
creative  activity,  we  learn  that :  "If  literary  art 
travelled  by  any  such  road  as  criticism  would  have 
it  go,  it  would  travel  in  a  vicious  circle,  and  would 
arrive  only  at  the  point  of  departure."  8  To  come 
at  once  upon  the  worst,  the  critic  is  a  parasite  on 
literature,  whose  "only  excuse  for  being  is  that 
somebody  else  has  been. ' '  8  Indeed,  he  is  formally 
likened  to  a  caterpillar: 

"The  critic  exists  because  the  author  first  ex 
isted.  If  books  failed  to  appear,  the  critic  must 
disappear,  like  the  poor  aphis  or  the  lowly  cater 
pillar  in  the  absence  of  vegetation.  These  insects 
may  both  suppose  that  they  have  something  to  do 
with  the  creation  of  vegetation ;  and  the  critic  may 
suppose  that  he  has  something  to  do  with  the 
creation  of  literature ;  but  a  very  little  reasoning 
ought  to  convince  alike  aphis,  caterpillar,  and 
critic  that  they  are  mistaken. ' ' 8 

How  is  it,  one  hastens  to  ask,  that  literature 
flourishes  to-day  more  luxuriantly  than  ever  be 
fore  with  this  canker  at  its  heart!  It  is  because, 
while  the  parasite  may  fatten  itself,  may  even 
inflict  pain,  it  is  utterly  powerless  to  effect  any 
lasting  injury  upon  the  vigorous  life-stalk  that 
sustains  it.  It  wounded  John  Keats,  hurt  him 
cruelly,  but  kill  him  it  did  not.  Wordsworth  and 

6  Criticism  and  Fiction  (1893),  p.  47. 

•'Ibid. 

°IMd.,  p.  37. 


His  Conception  of  Criticism        47 

Browning  were  treated  barbarously,  but  how  long 
was  their  fame  delayed?  " Every  literary  move 
ment,'7  Howells  maintains,  "has  been  violently 
opposed  at  the  start,  and  yet  never  stayed  in  the 
least,  or  arrested,  by  criticism;  every  author  has 
been  condemned  for  his  virtues,  but  in  no  wise 
changed  by  it. ' ' 9  Although  the  trite,  the  conven 
tional,  the  negative  have  always  been  championed, 
such  is  the  vitality  of  literature  that  always  the 
fresh,  the  novel,  and  the  positive  have  survived. 

As  a  piece  of  self -arraignment,  a  case  of 
Howells  versus  Howells,  this  nihilistic  conception 
of  the  function  of  criticism  has  no  great  interest, 
since  a  man  may  choose  whether  or  not  he  will 
take  himself  seriously  in  any  given  office.  The 
end  of  this  aspect  of  the  matter  is  that  Howells 
may  ask  us  in  vain  to  believe  that  he  labored 
devotedly  throughout  a  long  lifetime  in  a  cause  he 
regarded  as  futile  and  unworthy  of  his  talents. 
The  argument  repays  attention,  however,  for  the 
excellence  of  his  handling  and  for  the  additional 
piquancy  it  derives  from  the  purity  of  his  motives. 
This  confusion  of  the  antics  of  a  certain  type  of 
critic  with  criticism  as  a  genre  of  literature,  as  a 
creative  spiritual  force,  which  has  commonly  com 
mended  itself  to  disappointed  and  injured  au 
thors,  is  not  to  be  observed  every  day  in  the  skilful 
employ  of  a  master,  and  one  concerned  solely 
for  the  comfort  of  others.  Moreover,  it  is  perhaps 
not  superfluous  to  call  attention  from  time  to  time 
to  the  fact  that  while  it  may  be  true  that  every 
literary  movement  has  been  violently  opposed  at 
the  start,  it  is  at  least  equally  true  that  every 

•  Criticism  and  Fiction   (1893),  p.  39. 


48  William  Dean  Howells 

literary  movement  has  been  violently  championed 
at  the  start,  and  that  the  domain  of  literature  has 
no  monopoly  of  the  very  human  condition  that  the 
conservative  forces  have  a  certain  advantage  in 
the  strife.  To  maintain  that  "just  as  many  good 
novels,  poems,  plays,  essays,  sketches,  would  be 
written  if  there  were  no  such  thing  as  criticism  in 
the  literary  world,  and  no  more  bad  ones,"10  is 
not  very  different  from  saying  that  the  political 
history  of  the  race  would  be  what  it  has  been  if  no 
one  had  recorded  a  thought  on  the  subject  of 
politics.  John  M.  Robertson  (although  he  was 
not  so  seriously  perturbed  over  the  caterpillar  as 
over  the  botanist,  with  whom  we  shall  have  pres 
ently  to  deal)  has  taken  pains  to  remind  our 
critic  of  the  immense  influence  wielded  by  Pope, 
Boileau,  Lessing,  Voltaire,  Coleridge,  Words 
worth,  and  others.11  He  might  well  have  carried 
the  list  back  to  Aristotle,  who  appeared  in  the 
Saturday  Evening  Post  not  many  years  ago  as  an 
authority  on  the  short-story. 

The  influence  of  criticism  on  the  immediate 
success  or  failure  of  a  work  is  a  different  matter, 
and  one  on  which  it  is  much  easier  to  agree  with 
Howells.  No  phenomenon,  he  points  out,  is  more 
common  than  the  uselessness  of  criticism  against 
a  book  "that  strikes  the  popular  fancy,"  unless  it 
be  its  uselessness  in  behalf  of  a  book  that  "does 
not  generally  please."12  Indeed,  we  have  seen 
the  novels  of  J.  W.  De  Forest  slip  quietly  and 
certainly  into  oblivion,  in  spite  of  all  Ho  wells' 

10  Criticism  and  Fiction   (1893),  p.  47. 

11  Essays  Toward  a  Critical  Method  (1889),  p.  144. 
"Criticism  and  Fiction  (1893),  p.  40. 


His  Conception  of  Criticism        49 

pleading  and  cajoling,  and  on  the  other  hand, 
those  of  M.  Pierre  Loti  triumph)  steadily  and 
surely  over  the  unanimous  damnation  of  the 
Parisian  press.  This  means  that  the  reviewer  is 
not  a  dictator,  and  cannot  arbitrate  on  the  basis 
of  his  personal  preferences.  It  does  not  mean, 
one  may  be  sure,  that  he  might  as  well  be  silent 
as  speak  the  word  for  true  merit,  fimile  Faguet, 
who  is  quite  in  accord  with  Howells  on  this  point, 
finds  therein  great  cause  for  rejoicing,  exclaim 
ing:  "Pour  mon  compte,  j'en  suis  enchante. 
J'aurais  des  scrupules  de  conscience  terribles  si  je 
croyais  que  je  pusse  avoir  une  influence  sur  le 
succes  ou  Pinsucces  d'un  ouvrage.  Car,  dans  ce 
cas,  je  ferais  un  assez  villain  metier.  C'est  le 
pain  que  j'oterais  de  la  bouche  de  Pauteur  qui 
aurait  eu  le  malheur  de  ne  pas  me  plaire.  Ce 
serait  abominable/'13  The  French  critic  is  able 
to  view  the  seeming  disestablishment  of  his  voca 
tion  with  a  light  heart  because  he  entertains  no 
delusion  that  his  particular  literary  form  is  the 
menial  of  another.  "La  critique  est  un  genre 
litteraire  comme  un  autre,"  he  maintains,  "et 
voila  tout."14 

Even  in  this  matter,  however,  our  critic  exag 
gerates  his  negation.  Mrs.  Gertrude  Atherton, 
who,  I  take  it,  has  not  knowingly  credited  him 
with  any  good  thing,  holds  him  largely  responsi 
ble  for  the  "craze"  or  "fad"  for  Russian  novels 
in  this  country.  She  is  reported  as  saying: 
"Whatever  any  one  says  in  a  widely  read  maga- 

M"Sur  Cette  Question:   Quelle  est  1 'influence  morale  du  cri 
tique!  "  in  Propos  Litt&raires,  I  (1902),  p.  3. 
"Zfeid.,  p.  5. 


50  William  Dean  Howells 

zine  carries  a  great  deal  of  weight.  I  remember 
that  I  used  to  read  whatever  he  suggested.  I  read 
some  of  the  Spanish  novelists  whom  he  praised  so 
highly.  But,"  she  added,  "I  never  have  "been 
able  to  read  his  own  novels."15 

Given  such  a  negative  conception  as  Howells 
seems  to  hold  of  the  function  and  influence  of 
criticism,  an  inquiry  as  to  its  methods  and  criteria 
must  seem  superfluous  if  not  impertinent.  The 
logical  .method  would  be  the  immediate  abandon 
ment  of  the  pernicious  practice.  Yet  when  we  ask 
him  point  blank  if  critics  like  himself  fulfil  no  use 
in  this  world,  he  replies,  "I  should  not  like  to 
think  that,  though  I  am  not  quite  ready  to  define 
our  use."16  He  admits  that  critics  have  an  obvi 
ous  historical  use,  and  that  aesthetic  criticism  may 
perhaps  have  a  "cumulative  and  final  effect,"17 
though  its  efforts  at  directly  affecting  the  course 
of  literature  are  foreordained  to  futility.  And  a 
further  inquiry  proves  that  his  notions  of  critical 
method  do  in  fact  display  the  same  general  ten 
dency  as  his  practice,  a  tendency  toward  the  per 
fecting,  not  the  abandoning  of  the  art. 

The  general  method  of  criticism,  Howells  be 
lieved,  should  be  in  a  word  the  method  of  science. 
Its  aim  should  be  to  "place  a  book  in  such  a  light 
that  the  reader  shall  know  its  class,  its  function, 
its  character."18  Its  purpose  is  "to  ascertain 

19 Joyce  Kilmer,  "An  Interview  with  Gertrude  Atherton, "  re 
printed  from  the  New  York  Times  in  the  Editor  (1915),  42:299. 
See  also  "Why  Have  We  Not  More  Great  Novelists?"  in  Cur 
rent  Literature  (1908),  44:159,  and  Mrs.  Atherton 's  article, 
"Why  Is  American  Literature  Bourgeois? "  in  the  North  Ameri 
can  Review  (1904),  177:771. 

16  Criticism  and  Fiction  (1893),  p.  39. 

.,  p.  40.  M/bid.,  p.  33. 


His  Conception  of  Criticism        51 

facts  and  traits  of  literature,"  19  to  discover  prin 
ciples,  and  to  report  them.  Criticism  which  fondly 
imagines  that  it  can  give  laws  must  * '  altogether  re- 
conceive  its  office. "  20  "It  must  reduce  this  to  the 
business  of  observing,  recording,  and  comparing ; 
to  analyzing  the  material  before  it,  and  then  syn- 
thetizing  its  impressions. "  20  It  is  a  science,  of 
course,  as  far  removed  as  possible  from  Brune- 
tiere's  evolution  of  genres.  It  studies  the  forms 
of  life  rather  than  literary  types.  The  ideal  critic 
will  know  life  primarily,  and  will  value  literature 
as  a  record  of  life  simply.  His  sole  criterion  will 
be  its  faithfulness  to  the  life  from  which  it 
springs.  He  cannot  give  law,  he  will  not  dictate 
law ;  and,  in  fact,  law  cannot  be  given  to  the  crea 
tive  mind,  only  to  the  imitative.  He  will  be  a 
"gentle,  dispassionate,  scientific  student  of  cur 
rent  literature  who  never  imagines  that  he  can 
direct  literature,  but  realizes  that  it  is  a  plant 
which  springs  from  the  nature  of  a  people,  and 
draws  its  forces  from  their  life,  that  its  root  is  in 
their  character,  and  that  it  takes  form  from  their 
will  and  taste."21 

In  so  far  as  this  is  a  plea  for  dispassionate 
criticism,  and  in  so  far  as  it  discountenances  the 
subjection  of  a  work  of  art  to  aesthetic  law  exter 
nal  to  it,  it  is  quite  in  accord  with  the  critical  in 
telligence  of  our  time.  To  this  extent,  and  just  to 
this  extent,  it  meets  the  requirements  suggested 
by  Mr.  Brownell  for  a  criterion  free  and  eclectic 
and  at  the  same  time  reasonable.  Such  a  crite- 

19  Criticism  and  Fiction  (1893),  p.  38. 
*Ibid.,  p.  47. 
p.  55. 


52  William  Dean  Howells 

rion,  in  Mr.  BrowneH's  words,  is  one  " which  is 
untrammeled  by  precedent  and  unmoved  by 
change ;  which  is  strict  without  rigidity,  and  seeks 
the  law  of  any  performance  within  and  not  out 
side  it;  which  demands  no  correspondence  to  any 
other  concrete,  but  only  to  the  appropriate  ab 
stract;  which,  in  fact,  substitutes  for  a  concrete 
ideal  a  purely  abstract  one  of  intrinsic  applica 
bility  to  the  matter  in  hand."22  There  is,  how 
ever,  one  important  omission  in  Howells7  theo 
retic  statement,  the  critic's  duty  to  judge  the  artis 
tic  performance. 

We  have  seen  what  his  image  of  the  parasite 
led  him  to,  and  here  his  fondness  for  botanical 
analogy  has  again  betrayed  him.  Forgetful  of 
the  figurative  nature  of  his  conception  of  litera 
ture  as  a  plant  springing  from  the  life  of  a  people, 
and  oblivious  of  distinctions  between  the  biologi 
cal  and  the  social  sciences,  he  identifies  the  dispas 
sionateness  of  the  ideal  critic  with  that  of  the 
botanist  in  the  presence  of  his  specimens,  and  ar 
rives  at  a  confusion  of  critical  judgment  with  the 
law-giving  that  Mr.  Brownell  condemns.  The 
ideal  critic,  who,  after  the  manner  of  the  botanist, 
makes  it  his  business  to  discover  and  report,  will 
also  realize,  we  are  told,  that  ' '  there  is  a  measure 
of  the  same  absurdity  in  his  trampling  on  a  poem, 
a  novel,  or  an  essay  that  does  not  please  him  as  in 
the  botanist's  grinding  a  plant  underfoot  because 
he  does  not  find  it  pretty  .  .  .  that  it  is  his  busi 
ness  rather  to  identify  the  species  and  then  ex 
plain  how  and  where  the  specimen  is  imperfect 

"Criticism  (1914),  p.  61. 


His  Conception  of  Criticism        53 

and  irregular. ' ' 23  Here  again,  John  M.  Robert 
son,  the  most  serious  and  penetrating  critic  of  this 
phase  of  Mr.  Howells'  work,  has  taken  great  but 
maybe  not  altogether  needless  pains  in  exposing 
the  fallacy,  incidentally  pointing  out  the  incon 
sistency  of  the  last  phrase  in  the  passage  quoted. 
In  this  matter,  as  in  the  case  of  the  caterpillar, 
one  has  simply  to  make  an  end  by  going  to  How- 
ells  '  actual  practice,  where  he  may  be  found  doing 
nothing  if  not  judging,  and  sometimes,  it  must  be 
confessed,  giving  a  very  accurate  imitation  for 
one  of  his  gentle  nature,  of  trampling  and  grind 
ing  underfoot.  That  is  to  say,  he  treats  a  book 
or  a  literary  idea  which  he  regards  as  poisonous 
in  an  utterly  different  manner  from  the  way  a 
botanist  would  treat  a  poisonous  flower. 

Howells'  arraignment  of  criticism  as  it  is  prac 
ticed  is  on  the  two  general  charges  of  dishonesty 
and  superstition.  The  first  of  these  vices  is  dis 
played  in  that  criticism  which  judges  a  writer 
without  reference  to  his  aims,  which  essays  the 
offensive  role  of  instructor  to  the  author,  refus 
ing  to  learn  anything  from  him,  which  misrepre 
sents  his  work  by  magnifying  minor  faults  into 
important  ones,  which  descends  to  personalities, 
or  which,  at  its  worst,  adopts  the  brutal  method 
of  satire,  either  for  self -glory,  or  from  spite  and 
prejudice,  or  from  mere  habit,  or  in  accordance 
with  the  policy  of  some  particular  journal.  It 
goes  without  saying  that  if  we  are  to  have  perfect 
honesty,  the  one  thing  needful  is  a  critical  con 
science,  but  among  more  formal  and  specific  de- 

*  Criticism  and  Fiction  (1893),  p.  30. 


54  William  Dean  Howells 

terrents,  Howells  has  emphasized  the  total  aboli 
tion  of  the  anonymous  review,  and  the  revival  of 
the  fine  old  custom  of  quotational  criticism  as 
practiced  by  Hunt,  Lamb,  and  Hazlitt. 

"He  would  even  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  there 
was  no  just  and  honest  criticism  without  quota 
tion.  The  critic  was  bound  to  make  out  his  case, 
or  else  abdicate  his  function,  and  he  could  not 
make  out  his  case,  either  for  or  against  an  author, 
without  calling  him  in  to  testify. ' ' 24 

Superstition  reverences  the  classics  as  infalli 
ble,  attempts  to  set  up  minor  works  as  classics, 
and  misleads  by  judging  literature  with  reference 
to  models  and  to  laws  derived  from  the  classics. 
The  last  offence  is,  as  we  have  seen,  the  bulwark 
of  a  school  of  criticism  so  unpopular  nowadays 
that  to  assail  it  is  to  fight  a  phantom.  It  is  by  no 
means  easy  to  say,  however,  precisely  when  a 
reverence  for  the  classics  becomes  superstitious, 
or  precisely  where  the  revivifying  historic  imagi 
nation  of  the  scholar  overreaches  itself  and  plays 
tricks  with  rational  aesthetics.  The  two  things 
are  constantly  happening,  nevertheless,  and  How 
ells  objects  with  warrant  to  an  absurd  idolatry 
which  looks  upon  the  great  ones  as  altogether  per 
fect  and  that  bids  us  admire  beauties  in  literature 
which,  however  useful  to  the  historian,  is  barren 
aesthetically.  "At  least  three-fifths  of  the  litera 
ture  called  classic,  in  all  languages, "  he  estimates, 
"no  more  lives  than  the  poems  and  stories  that 
perish  monthly  in  our  magazines.  It  is  all  printed 
and  reprinted,  generation  after  generation,  cen- 

**  Imaginary  Interviews  (1910),  p.  225. 


His  Conception  of  Criticism        55 

tury  after  century ;  but  it  is  not  alive ;  it  is  as  dead 
as  the  people  who  wrote  it  and  read  it,  and  to 
whom  it  meant  something,  perhaps ;  with  whom  it 
was  a  fashion,  a  caprice,  a  passing  taste.  A  super 
stitious  piety  preserves  it,  and  pretends  that  it 
has  aesthetic  qualities  which  can  delight  or  edify; 
but  nobody  really  enjoys  it,  except  as  a  reflection 
of  the  past  moods  and  humors  of  the  race,  or  a 
revelation  of  the  author's  character;  otherwise  it 
is  trash,  and  often  very  filthy  trash,  which  the 
present  trash  generally  is  not."  25 

Howells'  attack  on  superstition  does  not  come 
off  with  quite  the  eclat  of  his  assault  on  dishonest 
reviewing.  One  admires  the  sincerity  and  the  zeal 
with  which  he  lays  hands  on  pedagogic  error,  but 
his  scorn  of  historical  studies  obtrudes,  not  to  his 
undoing,  but  at  times  to  the  nullification  of  his 
best  effects.  In  the  passage  just  quoted  he 
touches  an  undeniably  weak  spot  in  the  academic 
armor,  but  fails  to  pierce.  He  somehow  succeeds 
in  conveying  the  impression  that  the  superstition 
lies  as  much  in  preserving  and  studying  the  his 
torical  documents  as  in  attributing  to  them  the 
literary  qualities  they  have  not.  It  may  be  laid 
down  as  a  postulate  that  no  progress  can  be  made 
toward  a  rationalized  aesthetics  by  the  easy  ex 
pedient  of  depressing  historical  studies. 

This  brings  us  to  a  consideration  of  Howells' 
doctrine  of  modernism,  to  which  I  have  already 
made  casual  allusion.  We  noted,  in  the  first  chap 
ter,  the  view  of  literary  history  it  implied  and  the 
mannerism  in  speech  resulting  from  it.  If  How- 
ells  did  not,  as  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  accused 

"Criticism  and  Fiction  (1893),  p.  146. 


56  William  Dean  Howells 

him,  think  of  the  past  as  radically  dead,  he  did 
think  of  it  for  the  most  part  as  a  definite  progress 
toward  the  present ;  and  the  inexperienced  reader 
of  his  books  may  at  first  be  mystified  to  find  all  of 
the  literary  virtues  and  none  of  the  vices  attrib 
uted  to  our  own  time.  It  will  soon  become  clear, 
however,  that  Homer,  Dante,  and  Shakespeare 
should  be  read  only  as  our  contemporaries,  and 
that  the  words  modern  and  contemporary,  which 
applied  to  a  classic  author  constitute  the  very 
highest  praise,  are  Howells'  favorite  synonyms 
for  the  terms  universal  and  permanent,  ordinarily 
employed  in  speaking  of  literary  values.  He 
would  seek  permanent  and  universal  values  in  a 
literary  work  by  ignoring  its  age,  seek  positive 
and  independent  merit  in  a  scorn  of  relative  merit 
— extending,  so  to  speak,  Matthew  Arnold's  fear 
of  the  historical  fallacy.  But  here  again  it  is  in 
teresting  to  inquire  whether  he  was  able  con 
sistently  to  maintain  this  standard  of  modernity 
in  his  own  criticism.  And  again  it  must  be  said 
that  his  practice  lags  behind  his  theory.  We  do 
find  that  literature  may  be  enjoyed  as  a  reflection 
of  the  past.  Howells  was  glad  to  have  acquainted 
himself  with  Pope  for  this  very  reason.  In  his 
words : 

"He  was  the  first  of  the  writers  of  great  Anna's 
time  whom  I  knew,  and  he  made  me  ready  to  un 
derstand,  if  he  did  not  make  me  understand  at 
once,  the  order  of  mind  and  life  which  he  belonged 
to.  Thanks  to  his  pastorals,  I  could  long  after 
wards  enjoy  with  the  double  sense  requisite  for 
full  pleasure  in  them,  such  divinely  excellent  arti 
ficialities  as  Tasso's  Aminta  and  Guarini's  Pastor 


His  Conception  of  Criticism        57 

Fido ;  things  which  you  will  thoroughly  like  only 
after  you  are  in  the  joke  of  thinking  how  people 
once  seriously  liked  them  as  high  examples  of 
poetry."26 

Of  Goldoni's  comedies,  which  he  particularly  ad 
mired:  "One  ought  not  to  smile  at  this  morality, 
however,  without  remembering  the  age,  the  relig 
ion,  and  the  race  to  which  it  was  addressed;  to 
these  some  very  elementary  principles  might  have 
seemed  novel. ' ' 27  One  wonders  why  this  toler 
ance  cannot  be  extended  to  all  literature.  One 
finds  that  it  can  to  all  that  Howells  liked;  and  it 
is  to  be  said  to  the  credit  of  his  heart  again  that 
he  liked  especially  to  champion  the  despised  and 
rejected ;  yes,  even  romanticists  if  they  were  suffi 
ciently  despised  and  rejected.  The  successive 
chapters  on  Mrs.  Radcliffe  and  Sir  Walter  Scott 
in  Heroines  of  Fiction,  for  instance,  must  furnish 
a  puzzle  to  any  reader  who  is  not,  as  Howells 
would  say,  in  the  joke  of  this.  The  formula  "of 
its  age"  is  after  all  an  extremely  adaptable  one, 
and  may  be  used  either  to  excuse  or  to  condemn. 
The  fact  is,  Howells  cherished  not  a  few  of  the 
preferences  and  prejudices  associated  with  un 
scientific  criticism.  His  judgments  suffer,  for  ex 
ample,  through  his  chivalrous  attitude  toward 
women,  though  in  the  case  of  Mrs.  Eadcliif  e,  just 
cited,  it  was  indeed,  as  he  said,  high  time  for  some 
one  "to  justify  that  poor  lady's  art."  Again,  he 
was  perhaps  too  eager  to  champion  those  of  his 
fellow-craftsmen  who  labored  at  a  disadvantage, 

89 My  Literary  Passions  (1895),  p.  51. 

*" Carlo  Gjldoni"  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  (1877),  40:608. 


58  William  Dean  Howells 

whether  of  racial  prejudice,  as  in  the  cases  of  Paul 
Laurence  Dunbar  and  Charles  W.  Chesnutt,  or 
of  persistent  unpopularity,  as  in  the  case  of  J.  W. 
De  Forest,  or  of  mere  newness  to  the  public,  as  in 
most  cases.  This  loyalty  was  sincere  and  in  the 
main  praiseworthy  and  effective,  but  it  did  not 
hold  the  new  and  the  living  to  quite  the  standard 
of  the  dead  or  the  firmly  established.  Cause  was 
given  for  the  misunderstanding  that  prompted  one 
irritated  critic  to  exclaim:  "To  ask  why  Eden 
Phillpotts  is  a  great  novelist,  and  Thackeray, 
Dickens,  and  Meredith  are  not  is  not  a  question  of 
criticism.  It  is  a  conundrum." 

All  of  these  specific  shortcomings,  however, 
really  weigh  very  little  in  the  balance  against  the 
service  he  rendered  by  the  simple  but  still  unpopu 
lar  expedient  of  telling  the  truth  about  the  mas 
ters  of  the  past.  We  well  know  that  the  veriest 
tyro  to-day  would  not  commit  some  of  the  blun 
ders  common  in  the  masters  of  yesterday.  This  is 
the  answer  to  the  conundrum  just  proposed.  Pro 
fessor  Brander  Matthews  puts  it  as  follows : 

"However  great  Scott  was,  and  Dickens,  and 
Thackeray,  they  were  none  of  them  perfect  artists ; 
they  were  great  in  spite  of  gross  derelictions  from 
the  highest  standard.  This  is  what  Mr.  Howells 
has  tried  to  make  plain  even  to  careless  readers ; 
and  it  is  for  making  this  plain  that  careless  read 
ers  are  not  willing  to  forgive  him.  Nothing  is 
more  certain  to  arrest  progress  than  a  smug  satis 
faction  with  the  past — unless  it  is  a  slavish  copy 
ing  of  the  inferior  models  bequeathed  to  us  by  our 
more  primitive  predecessors.  Nothing  is  more 
helpful  than  a  clear  understanding  of  the  merits 


His  Conception  of  Criticism        59 

and  of  the  demerits  of  the  early  masters.  The 
merits  are  obvious  enough,  but  the  demerits  need 
to  be  discovered  and  declared  before  they  can 
serve  as  warnings.  It  is  not  a  paradox  but  a 
truism  that  the  art  of  fiction  is  a  finer  art  to-day 
than  it  was  when  Thackeray  was  writing — just  as 
it  was  a  finer  art  in  Thackeray's  time  than  it  was 
when  Cervantes  was  writing. "  28 

Howells'  contribution  to  criticism  is  happily 
out  of  all  proportion  to  the  merits  of  his  theory, 
just  as  the  volume  of  his  critical  writing  bears  no 
correspondence  to  his  low  opinion  of  the  critical 
office.  He  stands  very  much  in  relation  to  this 
problem  as  the  schoolboy  to  his  sum  when  he  ar 
rives  at  the  right  answer  by  a  wrong  method  of 
working.  Thus,  while  he  habitually  construed  the 
critical  process  as  an  occupation  with  books,  his 
practice  was  habitually  concerned  with  the  life 
recorded  in  books.  The  body  of  his  criticism  is 
very  impressive  in  its  faithfulness  to  the  single 
criterion  of  conformity  to  the  realities.  And  mod 
ern  literature  has  been  made  to  reflect  life  more 
faithfully  because  it  was  written,  and  to  acknowl 
edge  that  reflection  as  an  aim  and  ideal. 

•"Mr.  Howells  as  a  Critic"  in  the  Forum  (1902),  32:637. 


Ill 


HIS   IDEALS   OF   LITEBATUBE 

THE  essential  fact  about  modern  art  was  to 
Howells,  as  I  have  said,  its  conscious  fusion 
of  the  ideals  of  literature,  of  architecture,  or  of 
painting,  with  the  ideals  of  life.  The  novel  of  to 
day  aspires  to  be  not  an  aesthetic  document  merely, 
not  an  ethic  document  in  a  didactic  sense,  but  a 
revelation  of  moral  fact  in  terms  of  the  highest 
and  most  disinterested  art.  To  state  the  matter  in 
its  simplest  terms,  literature  and  the  cognate  arts 
are  to  be  identified  in  aim  with  all  the  other  great 
civilizing  forces,  like  science,  that  have  raised  the 
hnman  family  from  a  condition  of  savagery  to  a 
comparatively  rich  and  happy  existence.  The 
great  and  sole  function  of  scientific  writing  must 
be  recognized  as  that  of  all  serious  artistic  writ 
ing — to  make  the  truth  prevail.  "Men  are  more 
like  than  unlike  one  another, "  says  Howells;  "let 
us  make  them  know  one  another  better,  that  they 
may  be  all  humbled  and  strengthened  with  a  sense 
of  their  fraternity.  Neither  arts,  nor  letters,  nor 
sciences,  except  as  they  somehow,  clearly  or  ob 
scurely,  tend  to  make  the  race  better  and  kinder, 
are  to  be  regarded  as  serious  interests;  they  are 
all  lower  than  the  rudest  crafts  that  feed  and 
house  and  clothe,  for  except  they  do  this  office  they 

60 


His  Ideals  of  Literature  61 

are  idle ;  and  they  cannot  do  this  except  from  and 
through  the  truth."1 

Such  a  conception  of  the  function  of  literature 
presents  little  novelty  to-day;  nor  was  it  by  any 
means  original  in  the  late  eighties,  when  Howells 
was  issuing  his  pronouncements  from  the  "Edi 
tor's  Study."  It  had  in  its  contemporary  impli 
cations  its  genesis  in  the  positivistic  and  scientific 
furnace  through  which  earlier  in  the  century  the 
rich  ore  of  romanticism  had  to  pass.  It  attained 
in  the  Zolaism  of  the  seventies  its  extreme  of  for 
mal  exposition,  the  identification  not  only  of  liter 
ary  aims  but  of  literary  methods  with  the  scien 
tific.  Then  came  its  diffusion  and  modification. 
The  correction  of  the  roman  naturaliste  came  al 
most  immediately  under  the  renaissance  of  the 
roman  psychologique.2  But  the  winds  of  doc 
trine,  which  blew  mostly  from  France,  left  How- 
ells  unmoved.  Although  he  was  repeatedly  called 
a  doctrinaire,  the  basic  principles  of  his  doctrine 
were  those  simple  ones  that  were  the  property  of 
no  man  or  school  but  with  which  the  atmosphere 
of  the  whole  literary  world  wa*s  saturate. 

His  most  grateful  support  he  drew  from  his 
Spanish  friend  and  counterpart,  Palacio-Valdes. 
Using  the  declaration  made  for  modernity  by 
Valdes  in  the  prologue  to  La  Hermana  San  Sul- 
picio  (1889),  he  explained  the  power  of  literature, 
together  with  painting,  sculpture,  and  music,  to 
ennoble  the  race  through  the  spirit  of  beauty  to 

1  Criticism  and  Fiction  (1893),  p.  188. 

aln  1886,  the  year  of  Howells'  editorial  accession,  appeared 
Bourget's  Crime  d' Amour.  The  World  of  Chance,  his  novel  of 
literary  life,  includes  an  incidental  treatment  of  the  opposing 
schools. 


62  William  Dean  Howclls 

which  the  human  heart  is  ever  responsive.  The 
beautiful  effect  it  "receives  from  the  true  mean 
ing  of  things ;  it  does  not  matter  what  the  things 
are,  and  it  is  the  function  of  the  artist  who  feels 
this  effect  to  impart  it  to  others. "  "I  may  add," 
he  continues,  "that  there  is  no  joy  in  art  except 
this  perception  of  the  meaning  of  things  and  its 
communication;  when  you  have  felt  it,  and  por 
trayed  it  in  a  poem,  a  symphony,  a  novel,  a  statue, 
a  picture,  an  edifice,  you  have  fulfilled  the  purpose 
for  which  you  were  born  an  artist. ' '  3 

"The  man  of  our  time,"  says  Valdes  in  his 
preface,  "wishes  to  know  everything  and  enjoy 
everything:  he  turns  the  objective  of  a  powerful 
equatorial  towards  the  heavenly  spaces  where 
gravitate  the  infinitude  of  the  stars,  just  as  he  ap 
plies  the  microscope  to  the  infinitude  of  the  small 
est  insects ;  for  their  laws  are  identical.  His  ex 
perience,  united  with  intuition,  has  convinced  him 
that  in  nature  there  is  neither  great  nor  small; 
all  is  equal.  All  is  equally  grand,  all  is  equally 
just,  all  is  equally  beautiful,  because  all  is  equally 
divine."  "Things  that  appear  ugliest  in  reality 
to  the  spectator  who  is  not  an  artist,"  he  con 
tinues,  "are  transformed  into  beauty  and  poetry 
when  the  spirit  of  the  artist  possesses  itself  of 
them.  We  all  take  part  every  day  in  a  thousand 
domestic  scenes,  every  day  we  see  a  thousand  pic 
tures  in  life,  that  do  not  make  any  impression 
upon  us,  or  if  they  make  any  it  is  one  of  repug 
nance  ;  but  let  the  novelist  come,  and  without  be 
traying  the  truth,  but  painting  them  as  they  ap 
pear  to  his  vision,  he  produces  a  most  interesting 

3  Criticism  and  Fiction  (1893),  p.  62. 


His  Ideals  of  Literature  63 

work,  whose  perusal  enchants  us.  That  which  in 
life  left  us  indifferent,  or  repelled  us,  in  art  de 
lights  us.  Why?  Simply  because  the  artist  has 
made  us  see  the  idea  that  resides  in  it.  Let  not 
the  novelists,  then,  endeavor  to  add  anything  to 
reality,  to  turn  it  and  twist  it,  to  restrict  it.  Since 
nature  has  endowed  them  with  this  precious  gift 
of  discovering  ideas  in  things,  their  work  will  be 
beautiful  if  they  paint  these  as  they  appear.  But 
if  the  reality  does  not  impress  them,  in  vain  will 
they  strive  to  make  their  work  impress  others. "  4 
It  was  for  this  essentially  democratic  revalua 
tion  of  artistic  materials  and  experience  that  How- 
ells  stood  in  American  literature  and  life;  and 
during  the  years  1886  to  1892,  when  he  was  quar 
tered  in  the  "  Editor's  Study, "  to  stand  for  it 
meant  warfare — war  on  what  he  described,  in  re 
viewing  Matthew  Arnold's  charges  that  America 
lacked  interest  and  distinction,  as  the  "supersti 
tion"  of  the  romantic,  the  bizarre,  the  heroic,  the 
distinguished.  He  and  Mr.  Henry  Harper  agreed 
after  it  was  over  that  the  long  fight  had  been  a 
losing  one,  so  that  during  his  occupancy  of  the 
"Easy  Chair"  it  was  not  aggressively  renewed. 
The  discouragement  was  natural  but  not  alto 
gether  reasonable,  since  it  was  based  chiefly  on  the 
assumption,  already  demonstrated  as  erroneous  in 
the  case  of  Walt  Whitman,  that  an  art  which  drew 
its  vitality  from  the  life  of  a  people  must  in  vir 
tue  of  that  fact  be  accepted  of  the  people  and  at 
once  contribute  to  their  life.  The  century  had 
closed  in  a  blazing  recrudescence  of  the  historical 

*Pr6logo  to  La  Hermana  San  Sulpicio   (1889),  as  translated 
in  Criticism  and  Fiction  (1893),  pp.  61,  71. 


64  William  Dean  Howells 

romance.  The  boyish  company  gathered  about 
the  memory  of  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  had  found 
the  time  of  the  Spanish- American  War  propitious 
for  putting  a  sort  of  finishing  touch  upon  popular 
misconception  of  the  new  ideals.  Realism  was 
more  than  ever  discredited,  standing  in  the  pub 
lic  mind  a  "  sordid "  thing,  a  negation  of  all  the 
beauty  and  heroism  and  distinction  in  the  world. 
But  it  was  really  otherwise  with  the  best  artists. 
In  their  minds  beauty  and  heroism  and  distinc 
tion  had  been  indeed  supplanted  as  artistic  ideals 
by  the  perception  of  meanings  in  things  and  its 
communication. 

It  is  now  clearer,  though  not  clear  enough  for 
the  salvation  of  popular  fiction,  that  in  disestab 
lishing  Beauty  as  an  artistic  criterion  (even  to  the 
universal  tolerance  of  Mr.  John  Galsworthy  a 
"perpetual  begging  of  the  question ")  the  com 
pany  to  which  Howells  belonged  was  seeking  but 
to  extend  its  domain,  was  demanding  only  more 
and  more  beauty.  This  is  certainly  what  Howells 
tried  to  make  clear  in  his  remarks  about  Matthew 
Arnold.  If  we  had  not  much  of  the  kind  Arnold 
missed,  he  said,  we  did  not  undervalue  it,  but  fer 
vently  hoped  to  acquire  more  and  more  of  it — 
only  the  centre  and  bounds  of  our  interest  had 
shifted  to  include  "common  beauty,  common  gran 
deur,  or  the  beauty  and  grandeur  in  which  the 
quality  of  solidarity  so  prevails  that  neither  dis 
tinguishes  itself  to  the  disadvantage  of  anything 
else."  So  the  case  against  romance  was  not  a 
grudge  against  nobility  of  character  or  the  heroic 
in  conduct  but  against  a  spirit  that  suppressed, 
where  it  did  not  sentimentalize,  nine-tenths  of  the 


His  Ideals  of  Literature  65 

real  nobility  and  heroism  in  the  world,  that  was 
inviting  us  to  admire  a  swashbuckling  that  sus 
tained  no  relation  to  the  faith  and  feelings  of  the 
best  among  us,  and  a  grandeur  that  shone  at  the 
expense  of  our  common  grandeur  and  greatly  to 
the  disadvantage  of  the  futile  strivings  and  vague 
aspirations  on  which  we  based  our  faith  in  man. 

Sophisticated  criticism  now  proceeds  pretty 
generally  upon  the  axiom  of  the  essential  equality 
of  human  experience  for  the  purposes  of  art.  It 
has  become  more  scientific,  it  is  true,  and  from 
time  to  time  more  metaphysical  in  its  distinctions, 
but  I  do  not  know  that  it  has  really  superseded  or 
even  essentially  revised  the  enunciation  of  this 
principle  embodied  in  the  prologue  of  Valdes.  As 
for  Howells,  it  was  always  at  the  base  of  his  rea 
soning,  even  in  the  early  days  when,  as  he  laugh 
ingly  declared  to  Boyesen,  he  was  an  "idealist." 
He  was  always  finding  beautiful  meanings  in 
things  regarded  by  the  general  as  ignoble.  He 
built  his  first  published  novel,  Their  Wedding 
Journey  (1872),  entirely  in  illustration  of  it;  and 
he  subsequently  made  it  the  philosophic  justifica 
tion  for  his  tireless  endeavor  "to  show  poor  real 
life  its  foolish  face."  5 

But  while  to  the  democratic  spirit  it  is  no  longer 
permissible  to  question  an  artist's  choice  of  sub 
ject  matter,  but  only  the  value  of  the  artistic  prod 
uct  into  which  the  experience  has  been  trans 
muted,  there  is  still  with  us  an  aristocratic  spirit 
which  is  the  negation  of  this,  which  instructs  the 
author  not  to  choose  types  and  subjects  unworthy 
of  the  dignity  of  artistic  representation,  which 

8  Vide  Their  Wedding  Journey  (ed.  1899),  p.  67. 


66  William  Dean  Howells 

will  not  forgive  Howells  for  setting  down  the  na 
tive  Philistinism  without  malice,  and  which  de 
clares  that  the  world  he  portrayed  is  an  uninter 
esting  world  in  spite  of  all  that  genius  could  do 
for  it.  This  frank  objection  to  Howells '  attempt 
to  give  America  a  novel  of  manners  thus  divides 
criticism  hostile  to  him  into  two  classes,  the  one 
repudiating  his  world,  the  other  questioning  his 
method  of  treating  it  or,  in  the  most  unsympa 
thetic  instances,  his  capacity  for  catching  its  sig 
nificance.  I  wish  I  could  say  that  these  categories 
correspond  to  eras  or  periods  of  Howells  criti 
cism,  if  not  of  criticism  in  general,  as  in  a  loose 
way  they  do.  But  the  former  gives  constant  evi 
dences  of  its  " unofficial' '  survival.  Among  all  the 
reviews  of  this  class  in  my  collection,  one  of  the 
most  thoroughgoing,  and  one  of  which  I  am  espe 
cially  fond,  appeared  as  late  as  1903  in  the  col 
umns  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly.  Harriet  Waters 
Preston,  reviewing  The  Kentons,  writes: 

"The  truth  is  that  the  novel  of  manners  de 
mands,  first  of  all,  manners  to  be  delineated.  But 
manners,  in  the  widest  sense,  imply  homogeneous 
and  stable  conditions;  a  certain  sodal  creed  and 
hierarchy  accepted  without  question  and  almost 
without  thought,  together  with  a  tyrannous  tradi 
tion  antedating  but  always  coexisting  with  long 
codified  laws  of  conduct ;  and  manners  in  this  gen 
eral  sense,  we  have  none  in  America."  6 

As  a  useful  technical  distinction,  such  a  limitation 
of  the  term  manners  is  perhaps  to  be  recom 
mended,  but  that  such  definition  is  not  the  critic's 

•Harriet  Waters  Preston,  "The  Latest  Novels  of  Howells  and 
James,"  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  (1903),  91:77. 


His  Ideals  of  Literature  67 

purpose  is  made  evident  by  her  use  of  the  phrases 
"in  the  widest  sense "  and  "in  this  general 
sense. "  To  the  novelist  like  Howells,  who  has 
found  instability  of  social  code  a  condition  richly 
productive  of  manners,  the  tyranny  of  tradition 
is  the  dictator  of  manners  in  the  narrowest  sense. 
Otherwise  the  Kentons  are  excluded  from  the  cate 
gory  of  proper  types,  and  our  critic  says  in  so 
many  words  that  "we  owe  Mr.  Howells  a  grudge " 
for  having  made  us  know  them.  She  may  desire 
with  Senor  Valdes  to  view  the  celestial  spaces  and 
the  infinitude  of  the  stars,  but  she  radically  ob 
jects  to  having  the  insects  thrust  into  the  field  of 
vision.  The  Kentons,  the  tender  solicitude  of 
this  aging  pair  for  each  other  and  for  their  foolish 
children,  their  pathetic  fatuity,  their  lamentable 
ignorance  of  the  ways  of  the  world  beyond  the 
Alleghanies,  their  beautiful  and  gradual  growth 
into  mutual  dependence — how  familiar  and  touch 
ing  it  all  is !  Yet  we  are  bidden  to  regard  it  as  a 
deformity  on  the  face  of  civilization. 


"Types  they  may  be,  but  normal  and  complete 
human  beings  they  are  not.  They  are  the  scum 
and  spawn  of  a  yeasty  deep, — the  monstrous  off 
spring  of  barbarous  and  illicit  social  relations. 
They  are  necessarily  short-lived,  and,  it  is  to  be 
hoped,  sterile;  and  if  let  alone  would  probably 
perish  with  the  transitory  conditions  that  gave 
them  birth.  To  make  of  their  deformities  a  dime 
side  show  at  our  noisy  National  Fair  is,  to  say  the 
least  of  it,  not  nice.  To  pursue  them  intently — to 
approach  their  sad  case  with  paraphernalia  of 
literary  preparation — is  like  riding  in  pink,  and 


68  William  Dean  Howells 

with    winding    of    horns,    to    a   hunt    of    cock 
roaches  ! ' ' 7 

Thus  Brahmanism  from  time  to  time  gets  in  its 
word,  but  our  literature  has  continued  to  develop 
a  positive  and  inclusive  view  of  civilization  such 
as  the  conception  of  Howells  and  Valdes  provides 
for.  The  psychologic  and  sociologic  spirit  has 
made  all  humanity  its  province  and  has  found  the 
social  relations  evolved  from  new  conditions  far 
from  "barbarous  and  illicit/'  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  it  has  crossed  the  frontiers  of  barbarism  in 
pursuit  of  strange  atavisms,  but  these  have  en 
ticed  those  modern  souls  like  Kipling  and  Conrad, 
who  include  in  their  composition  a  perceptible 
romantic  strain.  What  is  common  to  the  men  of 
our  epoch  is  an  illimitable  expansion  of  interest, 
an  outward-facing  attitude  which  admits  no  imag 
ining  that  their  loyalty  to  a  group,  a  tradition,  or 
an  ideal,  can  be  fostered  to  good  issue  by  ignoring 
the  claims  of  the  human  to  sympathetic  under 
standing  wherever  manifest  and  in  whatever  lowly 
condition.  The  choicest  spirits  of  our  age  are  try 
ing  to  make  men  better  known  to  one  another  by 
and  through  the  truth.  In  this  endeavor,  it  is 
Ho  wells'  distinction  to  have  chosen  his  field  at 
our  own  door-steps,  to  have  made  the  despised 
and  rejected  American  tradition  of  social  equality 
his  ideal,  and  to  have  stressed  more  than  others 
the  humanitarian  impulse  behind  the  enlighten 
ments  of  art — the  impulse  to  liberate  men  from 
the  curse  of  narrowness  and  selfishness. 

I  would  not  suggest  that  Howells  in  his  insis- 

T  Harriet  Waters  Preston,  "The  Latest  Novels  of  Howells  and 
James,"  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  (1903),  91:77. 


His  Ideals  of  Literature  69 

^ 

tence  upon  the  instructional  office  of  the  novel 
made  any  concession  to  didacticism.  Modernity 
meant  to  him  a  final  mediation  between  moral  art 
and  art  for  art's  sake,  and  a  dismissal  of  both. 
In  his  view,  the  novel  on  the  one  hand  could  not 
exist  for  its  own  sake  nor  on  the  other  could  it 
accomplish  anything  by  cultivating  poetic  justice 
in  its  composition  or  encouraging  generalization 
and  easy  analogy  in  its  interpretation.  He  wished 
it  to  rely  on  fidelity  alone  to  quicken  the  reader's 
sense  of  kinship  with  his  fellows  and  in  particular 
a  sense  of  his  own  capacities  for  good  or  for  evil. 
And  his  faith  in  it  as  a  socializing  instrument  in 
cluded  a  Conradian  belief  in  the  efficacy  of  a  vivid 
impressionism  to  touch  the  heart  and  a  Meredith- 
ian  confidence  that  it  did  point  and  aid  to  "the 
firmer  footing  of  those  who  succeed  us."  When 
as  a  boy  he  came  under  Lowell's  influence  and 
obediently  tried  to  like  everything  the  master 
liked,  and  fell  instantly  in  love  with  Chaucer,  try 
as  he  would  he  could  find  no  place  in  his  heart 
for  Spenser.  As  a  man  he  flouted  the  polemic 
wherever  found,  consigning  the  abstract  and  the 
typical  to  the  melodrama  and  extravaganza  of 
the  theatre,  and  lamenting  the  Tolstoi  of  the  par 
ables  as  a  loss  to  art,  finding  the  apologue  of  high 
morality  as  worthless  as  ever  the  great  Russian 
found  the  allegorizing  of  the  decadents. 

The  realism  of  Howells,  repudiating  the  simple 
poetic  justice  of  the  sentimental  novelists  and 
scorning  to  allow  the  truth  to  be  tampered  with 
by  way  of  making  a  sermon,  is  not,  however,  dis 
posed  to  ignore  indebtedness  to  the  rare  talents 
of  an  earlier  day  who  succeeded  under  the  heavy 


yo  William  Dean  Howells 

handicap  imposed  by  moral  teaching.  Howells 
in  his  Heroines  of  Fiction  is  glad  to  head  his 
list  of  modern  heroines  with  Clarissa  Harlowe, 
and  pleads  eloquently  for  a  reversal  of  the  sen 
tence  which  relegates  Maria  Edgeworth  to  "the 
sad  society  of  mere  sermoners."  He  says: 

"Fiction  had  not  yet  conceived  of  the  supreme 
ethics  which  consist  in  portraying  life  truly  and 
letting  the  lesson  take  care  of  itself.  After  a  hun 
dred  years  this  conception  is  not  yet  very  clear  to 
many  novelists,  or,  what  is  worse,  to  their  critics ; 
and  the  novel,  to  save  itself  alive  from  the  con 
tempt  and  abhorrence  in  which  the  most  of  good 
people  once  held  it,  had  to  be  good  in  the  fashion 
of  the  sermon  rather  than  in  the  fashion  of  the 
drama.  It  felt  its  way  slowly  and  painfully  by 
heavy  sloughs  of  didacticism  and  through  dreary 
tracts  of  moral  sentiment  to  the  standing  it  ^now 
has,  and  we  ought  to  look  back  at  its  flounderings, 
not  with  wonder  that  it  floundered  so  long,  but 
that  it  ever  arrived.  In  fact,  it  did  not  flounder  so 
very  long,  and  it  arrived  at  what  is  still  almost  an 
ideal  perfection  in  the  art  of  Jane  Austen." 

Clearly,  so  far  as  the  time-worn  formula  of 
I' art  pour  I' art  is  a  protest  against  the  subversion 
of  beauty  by  the  moral  intent,  its  claim  has  been 
granted;  so  far  as  it  would  subvert  the  moral 
sense  in  the  pursuit  of  beauty  it  is  to  be  answered 
by  a  new  interpretation  of  the  old  truism: 
"Beauty  is  truth,  truth  beauty. "  Good  art,  in 
short,  is  good  morality.  Howells  is  willing  enough 
to  concede  the  possibility  of  an  unmoral  aim,  that 

« Heroines  of  Fiction  (1901),  I,  26. 


His  Ideals  of  Literature  71 

an  artist  may  create  solely  with  an  eye  for  beauty, 
but  that  beauty  can  ever  be  the  sole  effect  of  his 
creation,  is  inconceivable.  "  Morality  penetrates 
all  things, ' '  he  says ;  ' '  it  is  the  soul  of  all  things. 
Beauty  may  clothe  it  on,  whether  it  is  false  mo 
rality  and  an  evil  soul,  or  whether  it  is  true  and 
a  good  soul.  In  the  one  case  the  beauty  will  cor 
rupt,  and  in  the  other  it  will  edify,  and  in  either 
case  it  will  infallibly  and  inevitably  have  an  ethi 
cal  effect,  now  light,  now  grave,  according  as  the 
thing  is  light  or  grave.  "9  It  is  quite  possible  to 
quarrel  with  Howells'  terminology,  but  not,  I 
think,  with  his  meaning.  A  representation  of  life 
is  bound  to  be  in  effect  a  criticism  of  life,  and  an 
artist  cannot  by  invoking  an  old  and  still  hazy 
abstraction  such  as  beauty  escape  his  moral  re 
sponsibility. 

His  notions  of  the  beauty  that  corrupts,  how 
ever,  are  neither  so  clear  nor  so  unexceptionable ; 
they  hardly  consist,  indeed,  with  the  rudimentary 
principles  thus  far  sketched.  It  appears  on  close 
inquiry  that  the  truth  may  be  corrupting.  There 
is  no  inconsistency  in  a  realist  objecting  to  books 
that  portray  bestiality  "under  a  glamour  of  some 
thing  spiritual  and  beautiful  and  sublime.  "10 
The  manner  of  treatment  would  be  sufficient  to 
remove  such  works  from  the  realistic  category. 
But  Howells  does  not  hesitate  to  object  to  por 
trayals  of  bestiality  not  only  in  the  books  of  mod 
ern  writers  whose  sincerity  he  praises  and  whose 

'Criticism  and  Fiction  (1893),  p.  83. 

"/Zn'd.,  p.   61.     Translation  from   La  Hermana  San  Sulpicio 
(1889),  I, 


72  William  Dean  Howells 

philosophy  of  life  he  admires  but  in  the  classics. 
He  goes  so  far  as  to  call  for  expurgated  editions 
of  the  latter,  saying : 

*  '  I  hope  the  time  will  come  when  the  beast-man 
will  be  so  far  subdued  and  tamed  in  us  that  the 
memory  of  him  in  literature  shall  be  left  to  perish 
.  .  .  that  the  pedant  pride  which  now  perpetuates 
it  as  an  essential  part  of  those  poets  shall  no 
longer  have  its  way.  At  the  end  of  the  ends  such 
things  do  defile,  they  do  corrupt.  We  may  palli 
ate  them  or  excuse  them  for  this  reason  or  that, 
but  that  is  the  truth,  and  I  do  not  see  why  they 
should  not  be  dropped  from  literature,  as  they 
were  long  ago  dropped  from  the  talk  of  decent 
people."11 

I  have  already  commented  upon  Howells '  ex 
treme  readiness  to  divorce  the  historic  interest 
from  the  aesthetic.    This  question,  however,  is  one 
that  does  not  need  to  be  debated  on  grounds  of 
scholarship.    It  is  a  matter  of  simple  justice  to 
the  author  and  his  reader.     We  have  all  seen 
Chaucer  modernized  and  mangled,  Burns  purified 
by  ruining  the  rime  and  obscuring  the  reason,  an 
insult  to  the  genius  of  the  poet  and  to  the  intelli 
gence  of  all  who  would  know  him.    We  have  wit 
nessed  the  droll  spectacle  of  Swinburne  inviting 
us  to  admire  the  beauties  of  a  poem  by  Villon  part 
of  which  the  idolater  of  Mademoiselle  de  Maupin 
found  too  vile  to  print  even  in  its  antique  French. 
And  we  ought  all  by  this  time  to  have  seen  that 
no  man  can  be  trusted  to  exercise  anything  but 
the  wildest  vagary  in  this  procedure  of  expurga- 

II  My  Literary  Passions   (1895),  p.  54.    Cf.  ibid.,  pp.  109-113. 


His  Ideals  of  Literature  73 

tion,  for  it  is  in  essence  unnatural  and  unaesthetic. 
To  remove  the  parts  from  what  was  in  its  incep 
tion  and  execution  an  organic  whole  requires  the 
assumption  of  a  false  attitude  and  a  suspension  of 
appreciation.  The  suppression  of  evidence  neces 
sary  for  correct  judgment,  suppression  by  a  med 
dler  of  what  the  author  has  freely  furnished,  must 
be  an  abomination  before  all  mature  and  candid 
souls;  as  for  the  young,  they  ought  not  to  read 
fragments  of  a  work  that  would  defile  and  corrupt 
as  a  whole,  or  to  cultivate  authors  apt  to  prove 
dangerous  on  close  acquaintanceship.  Moreover, 
one  does  not  live  long  in  this  wicked  world  with 
out  encountering  enough  bestiality  to  render  in 
nocuous  the  works  of  the  great  literary  masters. 
And  finally,  it  were  double  sacrilege  to  begin  this 
ghastly  enterprise  of  dropping  the  beast-man 
from  our  classics  where  one  bent  on  preserving 
the  innocence  of  youth  would  naturally  have  to 
begin  it,  with  the  greatest  and  most  accessible  of 
our  classics,  the  King  James  Bible. 

Having  agreed  that  there  is  no  comfort  in  igno 
rance,  and  having  received  with  acclaim  the  decla 
ration  that  the  man  of  to-day  should  know  every 
thing,  I  see  no  consistency  in  being  asked  to  live 
by  the  talk  of  "decent  people "  alone.  The  Wife 
of  Bath  is  on  her  pilgrimage  to-day,  and  to  spurn 
her  acquaintance  is  clearly  to  invite  sclerosis  of 
the  sympathies.  Howells'  squeamishness  does  not 
end  with  the  license  of  bygone  centuries.  He 
brings  it  into  the  very  holy  of  holies  of  modern 
ism.  He  is  happy  to  find  that  by  virtue  of  what 
he  congratulates  us  upon  as  our  Anglo-Saxon  tra 
dition  or  convention  of  decency,  we  are  forbidden 


74  William  Dean  Howells 

to  follow  in  the  footsteps  of  the  great  French  and 
Russian  masters.  He  admonishes  our  writers: 
"You  cannot  deal  with  Tolstoi 's  and  Flaubert's 
subjects  in  the  absolute  artistic  freedom  of  Tol 
stoi  and  Flaubert;  since  DeFoe,  that  is  unknown 
among  us ;  but  if  you  deal  with  them  in  the  man 
ner  of  George  Eliot,  of  Thackeray,  of  Dickens,  of 
society,  you  may  deal  with  them  even  in  the  maga 
zines."12  But  after  all  he  has  said  about  the 
methods  of  these  eminent  Victorians,  and  after 
he  has  told  us  so  often  of  the  infinite  superiority 
of  Tolstoi's,  this  seems  cruel.  No  one  of  the 
great  English  trio  fully  satisfied  him;  George 
Eliot  is  the  only  one  who  can  be  said  to  have  satis 
fied  him  at  all;  he  saw  the  true  light  dawn  over 
the  steppes  of  Russia ;  he  found  the  last  word  said 
in  Turgeniev  and  Tolstoi;  and  yet  he  rejoices  that 
darkness  still  hangs  over  our  land;  he  finds  it 
right  and  fitting  that  the  Anglo-Saxon  mouth 
should  be  stopped.  Why?  One  would  fain  let  the 
question  pass,  but  the  truth  must  out:  In  our 
country  we  write  for  young  ladies.13  Is  not  that 
a  pretty  box  in  which  to  shut  our  budding  Tolstoi ! 
Grown-up  Americans  may  have  their  Flaubert 
and  Zola,  because  the  books  can  be  locked  up ;  but 
let  our  writers  continue  to  write  realism  for  young 
ladies. 

The  argument  by  which  Howells  half -reconciles 
this  amazing  prescription  with  the  large  and  gen 
erous  aims  already  defined  for  a  national  litera 
ture  is  interesting  and  displays  an  unsuspected 
relevance  to  those  aims.  He  declares  that  America 

"  Criticism  and  Fiction  (1891),  p.  161. 
"Ibid.,  p.  149. 


His  Ideals  of  Literature  75 

has  not  the  sex  problems  of  Continental  fiction, 
that  conditions  are  actually  more  fortunate  here 
than  abroad,  and  that,  consequently,  the  novelist 
who  portrays  our  conditions  does  wrong  to  in 
fuse  unwholesome  conceptions  of  love.14  Now, 
such  a  declaration  presents  two  distinct  aspects, 
representing  on  the  one  hand  a  regrettable  re 
striction  and  on  the  other  a  peculiar  strength  of 
Howells'  own  art.  In  his  geographical  distinc 
tions  Howells  is  in  the  first  place  clearly  theoriz 
ing  away  his  self-imposed  limitations  in  subject 
matter  and  seeking  to  form  others  upon  himself  ; 
but  in  the  second  place  he  is  sincerely  describing 
the  representative  America  of  his  day,  the  world 
which  no  one  else  could  portray  as  he  portrayed 
it,  and  in  which  the  situations  of  the  Continental 
novel  did  not  figure.  Eespectability  was  in  all  its 
implications  supremely  characteristic  of  that 
world,  and  the  young  lady  did  occupy  in  it  a  posi 
tion  she  has  held  in  no  other.  It  is  the  peculiar 
glory  of  the  Howells  art  to  have  taken  the  repre 
sentative  and  characteristic  and  without  betraying 
the  truth  to  have  made  it  rich  with  beauty  and 
meaning;  but  this  is  the  result  of  a  temperamen 
tal  fitness  and  an  intense  specialization  that  by 
neither  his  own  declarations  nor  those  of  his  col 
leagues  should  be  exacted  of  others. 

The  limitations,  consequently,  are  for  the  most 
part  evident  in  their  effect  upon  others.  For  one 
does  not  think  of  Howells  simply  as  a  supreme 
literary  artist,  or  simply  as  an  active  and  en 
lightened  apostle,  preaching  the  aims  and  methods 

M  Vide  ' l  Mr.  Howells  on  Love  and  Literature, "  by  A.  Schade 
van  Westrum,  in  Lamp  (1904),  28:26. 


76  William  Dean  Howells 

of  the  European  masters  who  brought  him  into 
his  own.  His  long  leadership  in  precept  and  ex 
ample,  coupled  with  his  powerful  editorial  con 
nections,  made  him  in  a  very  real  sense  a  school 
master  to  the  younger  generation,  although  his 
school  denied  being  a  school  as  such.  And  into 
this  "magazine  school,"  which  Mrs.  Atherton 
periodically  denounces,  and  for  which  she  holds 
Howells  responsible,  he  did  infuse,  under  the 
specious  title  of  Anglo-Saxon  convention  of  de 
cency,  an  ideal  largely  the  property  of  writers 
whom  he  did  not  particularly  admire.  But  while 
I  do  not  consider  the  influence  of  this  tradition  of 
"niceness"  on  his  minor  disciples  a  matter  for 
gratitude,  I  am  happy  to  detect  an  exaggeration 
in  Mr.  Alexander  Harvey 's  statement  that  ' '  every 
time  Howells  praises  a  writer,  he  turns  out  to  be 
of  the  sissy  school." 15  The  major  figures  reached 
by  his  influence  took  radical  exception  to  his  ex 
altation  of  prudery.  It  is  a  pleasure  to  note  that 
Boyesen,  who  of  all  his  admirers  stands  most 
closely  in  relation  of  discipleship,  rose  ardently  in 
rebellion  against  the  "young  ladies";  and  in  gen 
eral  those  men  whose  vitality  in  our  literature 
Howells  was  most  continuously  predicting  and  ac 
knowledging  have  displayed  the  most  virility. 
His  difficulties  with  the  work  of  Mr.  Robert  Her 
ri  ck,  for  example,  which  he  found  almost  une 
qualled  in  moral  power,  were  considerable.  Mr. 
Herrick,  he  complained,  "sees  the  social  condi 
tions,  as  regards  the  wilfulness  and  waywardness 

18  William  Dean  Howells:  A  Study  of  the  Achievement  of  a 
Literary  Artist  (1917),  p.  196.  The  first  book-length  study  of 
Howells  to  appear. 


His  Ideals  of  Literature  77 

of  women,  rather  redder  than  they  are,  or  say 
yellower,  for  there  is  a  strain  of  vulgarity  in  their 
aberrations  which  is  very  suggestive  of  a  kind 
of  modern  journalism. "  16  Again,  the  work  of 
Mr.  Hamlin  Garland  he  followed  with  the  highest 
interest  and  approbation;  yet  he  could  not  enjoy 
its  frankness  in  facing  facts  when  the  facts  hap 
pened  to  be  those  about  sexual  relationships.  His 
comment  on  Garland's  handling  of  erotic  themes 
is  of  especial  interest  because,  being  less  geo 
graphical,  it  shows  his  willingness  to  expose  his 
temperamental  and  conventional  bias: 

".  .  .  It  puts  the  gross  passions,  the  propensi 
ties  to  shame,  rather  than  flatters  or  entices  them ; 
but  it  doesn't  recognize  the  beast  in  the  man's  de 
sire  of  the  woman,  the  satyr  leer  which  is  the 
complement  of  the  lover's  worship.  In  Rose  of 
Butcher's  Coolly,  in  Hesper,  in  Money  Magic, 
measurably  in  them  all,  you  find  the  refusal,  when 
it  comes  to  the  fact,  to  ignore  what  cannot  be  de 
nied.  I  am  old-fashioned,  and  I  have  moments 
when  I  could  wish  that  the  author  had  not  been 
of  such  unsparing  conscience.  That  is  all,  and 
with  this  wish  noted  I  can  give  myself  to  the  entire 
pleasure  which  the  purity  and  wholesomeness  of 
his  fiction  offers  me."17 

The  biographical  facts  commonly  cited  to  bear 
out  the  contention  that  Howells'  penchant  for  re 
spectability  seriously  limited  his  own  sympathies 
are  amusing  rather  than  impressive.  The  inci- 

M"  Robert  Herriek"  in  the  North  American  Review  (1909), 
189:812. 

17 ' '  Mr.  Garland 's  Books ' '  in  the  North  American  Review 
(1912),  196:523. 


78  William  Dean  Howells 

dent  of  Pfaff  's  beer-cellar,  which  promises  to  be 
come  another  such  classic  as  the  Whittier  birth 
day  story,  has  recently  been  suggested  as  a  final 
criticism  of  him  and  his  work.  Howells  visited 
this  celebrated  Bohemia  on  Broadway  as  a  young 
man  fresh  from  the  ultra-refinement  of  the  Bos- 
tonian  literary  circle,  and  penned  a  description  of 
it  in  a  manner  somewhat  foreign  to  his  gentle  and 
tolerant  nature.  Those  who  took  offence  at  it, 
however,  did  not  hold  themselves  strictly  to  the 
letter  of  justice,  since  Howells'  chief  objection  to 
Pfaff 's  was  that  it  was  a  sham  Bohemia,  though 
it  was  perfectly  evident  that  he  would  have  been 
no  more  at  home  in  the  Bohemia  of  Paul  Verlaine. 
Nor  was  this  aspect  of  the  matter,  in  which  lay 
the  point  of  Howells'  jibe,  duly  noted  on  the  pub 
lication  of  William  Winter's  Memories  of  Au 
thors,  when  the  episode  was  brought  out  for  re- 
hauling  and  given  its  vogue  as  a  critical  weapon. 
Of  the  comments  called  forth  by  Winter's  mem 
oirs,  I  liked  best  an  editorial  by  Mr.  Colby  of 
the  Bookman.  Mr.  Colby,  after  remarking  that 
extreme  niceness  leads  readers  to  plunge  "into 
rebellious  extremes  of  coarseness,  swearing,  per 
haps,  or  eating  with  their  knives,"  goes  on  to  dis 
cuss  a  detail  from  "The  Pursuit  of  the  Piano." 

"Thus  the  hero  of  one  of  his  short  stories 
printed  a  few  years  ago,  observes  from  his  win 
dow  a  piano-case  having  on  it  the  name  and  ad 
dress  of  a  young  woman.  After  long  and  very 
minute  reflection  he  concludes  that  the  young 
woman  may  have  been  a  little  girl  whom  he  used 
to  see  years  before  running  barefooted  on  her 
father's  lawn.  The  fancied  identification  of  this 


His  Ideals  of  Literature  79 

young  woman,  now  no  doubt  quite  grown-up,  with 
the  child  whose  active  brown  legs  he  distinctly  re 
members,  brings  the  hot  blushes  to  that  hero's 
cheeks.  It  is  the  romanticism  of  prudery — an  ex 
treme  instance,  perhaps,  but  illustrating  Mr. 
Howells'  spinster-like  intemperance  in  matters  of 
propriety.  The  romancers  idealize  the  manly  vir 
tues  of  their  heroes;  he  idealizes  the  niceness  of 
his.  It  is  no  harder  to  slay  a  giant  than  to  blush 
in  solitude  at  the  thought  of  brown  legs.  There 
are,  of  course,  deeds  of  propriety  no  less  incred 
ible  than  deeds  of  blood,  and  the  *  refinement'  of 
Mr.  Howells'  heroes  often  seems  as  unfamiliar  to 
this  earth  as  the  beauty  and  bravery  of  Sir  Wal 
ter's."18 

The  fashion  of  poking  fun  at  Howells'  niceness 
and  of  insisting  upon  the  limitation  represented 
by  his  reverence  for  "decent  people"  will  dis 
appear  before  a  wider  and  deeper  acquaintance 
with  his  works,  in  which  it  must  be  found  that  he 
has  reaped  a  unique  and  a  substantial  reward  for 
his  circumspection.  Objections  are  prevalently 
based  on  the  assumption  that  there  is  such  a  thing 
as  a  realism  that  can  treat  a  given  subject  with 
out  leaving  lacunas — the  realism,  let  us  say,  that 
was  to  give  us  the  "great  American  novel"  we 
used  to  hear  so  much  about  and  that  is  still  em 
ployed  as  a  hypothetical  standard  of  comparison. 
Howells  in  confining  himself  to  such  erotic  mani 
festations  as  he  found  in  the  society  he  treated, 
and  especially  devoting  himself  to  a  detached  and 
intensive  study  of  the  minutiae  of  sexual  differ 
ences  as  displayed  in  that  highly  correct  society, 

"The  Bookman  (1908),  28:124. 


8o  William  Dean  Howells 

has  left  lacunae  so  far  as  concerns  a  hypothetically 
complete  portrayal  of  life,  comparable  to  those 
left  by  novelists  engrossed  with  the  animal  side  of 
man's  nature,  but  he  has  given  us  a  great  many 
things  that  are  not  to  be  found  elsewhere  than  in 
his  novels.  To  cite  an  example,  the  subtleties  of 
American  courtship  as  contrasted  with  the  Euro 
pean  are  nowhere  exposed  as  in  these  novels. 
The  wooing  of  Marcia  Hubbard  he  might  well 
have  called  a  national  as  well  as  a  modern  in 
stance,  and  it  took  a  prodigious  niceness  to  enter 
into  it  as  he  did.  The  affair  of  Ellen  Kenton  is 
done  with  amazing  insight.  No  one  has  studied  in 
such  an  attitude  of  critical  detachment  the  oddi 
ties  of  the  Mid-Western  combination  of  Puritani 
cal  rectitude  with  unlimited  freedom.  It  may 
truly  be  said  that  Howells  beyond  any  one  else  has 
given  a  nationally  verifiable  character  to  love- 
making,  and  this  he  could  never  have  done  without 
his  sympathy  with  "decent  people "  and  his  vast 
acquaintance  with  the  proprieties.  It  is  only 
after  the  proprieties  are  understood  and  accepted 
as  social  phenomena  that  the  passion  of  his  peo 
ple  can  be  appreciated.  And  the  passions  of  some 
of  these  people  derive  a  truly  dreadful  power 
from  the  decora  that  hedge  them  in.  One  might 
wander  a  long  time  in  loose  company  without  get 
ting  such  a  shock  as  that  afforded  by  the  ani- 
mality  of  Christine  Dryfoos,  for  example,  in  A 
Hazard  of  New  Fortunes. 

In  general,  Howells  fulfilled  a  rare  artistic  mis 
sion  in  applying  the  doctrine  of  the  equality  of 
experience  to  American  society.  He  proved  that 
the  commonplace  is  not  necessarily  trivial  or  in- 


His  Ideals  of  Literature  81 

significant.  Being  a  poet  (except  when  he  wrote 
in  verse),  he  wanted  above  all  things  else  to  make 
men  appreciate  the  poetry  at  their  doorsteps. 
And  his  unique  gift  was  that  which  enabled  him 
to  discover  how  rich  the  vein  of  it  is  that  strikes 
through  the  quotidian  fact  of  existence.  He  found 
it  in  the  routine  of  receptions  and  teas,  and  in  the 
inanities  of  the  summer  veranda.  He  found  the 
glow  of  romance — to  employ  the  favorite  phrase 
of  his  detractors — not  under  tropical  moons  (the 
shipwreck  and  adventures  of  Captain  Fenton 
among  the  coral  islands  must  be  conceded  the  most 
ineffective  episode  in  the  entire  range  of  his  writ 
ings)  but  in  the  desolation  of  snow-locked  New 
England  villages.  His  cry  was  ever — and  it  was  a 
cri  du  cceur:  "Ah!  poor  real  life  which  I  love, 
can  I  make  others  share  the  delight  I  find  in  thy 
foolish  and  insipid  face?"  f*^ot 

There  was  a  time  when  Howells  was  a  little  too 
sure  that  dissatisfaction  with  the  commonplace 
betokened  a  shallow  mind.  This  was  the  time 
when  with  a  variety  of  mock-apology  and  critical 
admonition  to  discard  all  abnormal  and  unusual 
manifestations  he  wrote  his  creed  into  the  dia 
logue  and  comment  of  Their  Wedding  Journey 
(1872): 

"As  in  literature  the  true  artist  will  shun  the 
use  of  real  events  if  they  are  of  an  improbable 
character,  so  the  sincere  observer  of  man  will  not 
desire  to  look  upon  his  heroic  or  occasional 
phases,  but  will  seek  him  in  his  habitual  moods  of 
vacancy  and  tiresomeness.  To  me,  at  any  rate, 
he  is  at  such  times  very  precious ;  and  I  never  per 
ceive  him  to  be  so  much  of  a  man  and  a  brother  as 


82  William  Dean  Howells 

when  I  feel  the  pressure  of  his  vast,  natural,  un 
affected  dullness.  Then  I  am  able  to  enter  'con 
fidently  into  his  life  and  inhabit  there,  to  think 
his  shallow  and  feeble  thoughts,  to  be  moved  by 
his  dumb,  stupid  desires,  to  be  dimly  illumined  by 
his  stinted  inspirations,  to  share  his  foolish  preju 
dices,  to  practice  his  obtuse  selfishness. " 

He  came  later  to  regret  what  he  pronounced  the 
misconception  that  construed  these  remarks  as 
prohibitory  dicta  and  gave  his  descriptions  of  the 
true  realist  a  more  positive  cast : 

"In  life  he  finds  nothing  insignificant;  all  tells 
for  destiny  and  character;  nothing  that  God  has 
made  is  contemptible.  He  cannot  look  upon  hu 
man  life  and  declare  this  or  that  thing  unworthy 
of  notice,  any  more  than  the  scientist  can  declare 
a  fact  of  the  material  world  beneath  the  dignity 
of  his  inquiry."19 

As  a  critical  apostle  of  the  commonplace  he  may 
have  misdirected  a  multitude  of  second-rate  and 
imitative  writers,  but  on  the  original  minds  he  was 
a  compulsion  to  fresh  beauties  and  an  exactitude 
our  literature  had  never  known.  They  have  not 
devoted  themselves,  any  more  than  novelists  ever 
have  devoted  themselves,  exclusively  to  chroni 
cling  the  noon-day  spaces  of  life,  nor  have  they 
habitually  sought  existence  upon  the  normal  plane 
of  the  average  man  and  woman,  so  incomparably 
incarnated  in  the  persons  of  Basil  and  Isabel 
March;  but  whether  seeking  high  or  low,  they 
have  learned  to  approach  their  matter  with  a 
reverence  for  the  verities  such  as  moved  neither 
Sir  Walter  nor  the  apostle  to  Les  Miserables. 

"Criticism  and  Fiction  (1891),  p.  16. 


IV 

HIS   LITEEAEY   METHOD 

fTlHE  aim  of  the  Howells-Valdes  type  of  real- 
A  ism,  to  delight  and  ennoble  the  soul  by  reveal 
ing  the  truth,  the  idea  that  resides  in  all  things 
great  and  trivial,  and  this  through  the  ever-living 
sense  of  beauty,  is  thus  couched  in  terms  too  gen 
erous  for  monopoly  by  the  literature  of  any  one 
time  or  place.  Such  was  the  aim  of  romanticism 
at  its  best,  and  so  far  as  romanticism  was  faithful 
to  its  highest  calling,  we  are  to  reverence  it.  It 
struggled,  says  Howells,  "to  overthrow  the  classic 
tradition  ...  to  seek  poetry  in  the  common  ex 
periences  of  men  and  to  find  beauty  in  any  theme ; 
to  be  utterly  free,  untrammeled,  and  abundant ;  to 
be  in  literature  what  the  Gothic  is  in  architecture. 
It  perished  because  it  came  to  look  for  beauty 
only,  and  all  that  was  good  in  it  became  merged  in 
realism,  which  looks  for  truth. ' '  *  We  have  now 
to  deal  with  the  romanticism  that  lived  on  unoffi 
cially,  and  in  particular  to  deal  with  it  as  it  lived 
to  prod  the  dominant  school  into  a  defence,  into 
an  analysis  of  its  literary  methods. 

Here  especially  must  it  be  remembered  that  we 
labor  with  a  loose  and  difficult  terminology.  The 
word  romantic  is  perhaps  the  vaguest  in  the  criti 
cal  lexicon,  but  so  firmly  ensconced  that  even  the 
historian  defines  it  at  his  peril.  Consider  how 

1  Modern  Italian  Poets  (1887),  p.  135. 

83 


84  William  Dean  Howells 

Professor  Beers  has  had  to  defend  himself  for 
having  tried  to  make  it  mean  something  in  a  his 
torical  sense.  Professor  Brander  Matthews  some 
years  ago  proposed  relieving  this  long-suffering 
word  by  making  derivative  terms  share  some  of 
its  technical  meanings,  but  his  discerning  effort 
was  wholly  ineffectual.  More  recently,  it  is  true, 
Professor  Stuart  P.  Sherman  in  his  brilliant  se 
quence  of  essays  on  contemporary  literature 2 
has  cleared  the  way  to  a  re-establishment  of  this 
and  other  old  and  misused  terms,  endowing  them 
with  meanings  at  once  definite  and  comprehen 
sive  ;  and  Mr.  Wilson  Follett,  taking  several  hints 
from  Professor  Sherman,  has  in  his  discussion  of 
the  modern  novel3  treated  " romances "  with  en 
gaging  lucidity.  But  the  antithesis  of  realism  and 
romanticism  is  still  generally  employed  with  the 
devious  connotation  described  in  the  popular 
handbooks  of  Professor  Bliss  Perry  and  Mr.  Clay 
ton  Hamilton — and  was  almost  exclusively  so  em 
ployed  in  the  days  when  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 
and  his  supporters  were  remonstrating  against 
William  Dean  Howells  and  his  school. 

The  realist,  in  the  common  acceptation  of  the 
title,  first  endeavors  to  link  art  beyond  all  sever 
ance  with  the  actual  facts  of  life;  he  holds  the 
raison  d'etre  of  fiction  to  be  the  exact  depiction  of 
human  conduct  and  motive.  Reasonable  as  this 
seems,  the  romanticist  will  shy  at  any  such  words 
as  actual  or  exact.  "And  as  the  root  of  the  whole 
matter, "  bids  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  "let  him 
bear  in  mind  that  his  novel  is  not  a  transcript  of 

*On  Contemporary  Literature,  N.  Y.,  Holt,  1917. 
•  The  Modern  Novel,  N.  Y.,  Knopf,  1918. 


His  Literary  Method  85 

life,  to  be  judged  by  its  exactitude ;  but  a  simplifi 
cation  of  some  side  or  point  of  life,  to  stand  or 
fall  by  its  significant  simplicity. ' ' 4 

The  romancer,  then,  wishes  his  characters  and 
their  story  simplified  and  unified.  From  the  tan 
gled  play  of  contradictory  motives,  he  plucks  out 
a  ruling  passion.  His  narrative  is  a  chain  of  di 
rect  causes  and  effects,  many  of  them  dependent 
upon  the  complicity  of  accident  and  coincidence. 
The  right  thing  to  keep  the  plot  moving  in  its 
foreordained  direction  is  sure  to  happen,  whether 
the  chances  of  its  happening  in  life  are  favorable 
or  not.  If  too  obviously  not,  the  author  adds 
events  or  alters  with  the  purpose  of  making  the 
tale  believable.  In  fine,  he  creates  a  world  of  his 
own,  which  he  manipulates  as  he  chooses,  offering 
it  perhaps  as  a  means  of  escape  from  the  real  and 
"  sordid "  world.  The  novel  then  becomes  either 
a  work  of  "idealism"  or  an  instrument  of  diver 
sion,  the  "pocket  theatre"  of  Marion  Crawford. 
Or  perhaps  he  holds  it  the  duty  of  art  to  explain 
life  by  reconstructing  it  in  a  more  intelligible  me 
dium,  by  scorning  its  mere  facts  to  make  its  essen 
tials  the  more  readily  appreciable.  He  then  offers 
his  work  as  a  vehicle  of  truth  as  well  as  diversion. 
Stevenson  again: 

*  *  For  the  welter  of  impressions,  all  forcible  but 
discrete,  which  life  presents,  it  substitutes  a  cer 
tain  artificial  series  of  impressions,  all  indeed 
most  feebly  represented,  but  all  aiming  at  the 
same  effect,  all  eloquent  of  the  same  idea,  all 

*"A  Humble  Remonstrance,"  in  Memories  and  Portraits. 
Works,  Scribner  (1909),  XIII,  357.  Originally  appeared  in 
Longman's  Magazine,  December,  1884. 


86  William  Dean  Howells 

chiming  together  like  consonant  notes  in  music 
or  like  the  graduated  tints  in  a  good  picture. 
From  all  its  chapters,  from  all  its  pages,  from 
all  its  sentences,  the  well-written  novel  echoes  and 
re-echoes  its  one  creative  and  controlling  thought ; 
to  this  must  every  incident  and  character  con 
tribute;  the  style  must  have  been  pitched  in  uni 
son  with  this;  and  if  there  is  anywhere  a  word 
that  looks  another  way,  the  book  would  be 
stronger,  clearer,  and  (I  had  almost  said)  fuller 
without  it.  "6 

Realism  is  the  reverse  of  this.  Especially  does 
it  find  in  the  simplification  upon  which  Stevenson 
insists  as  a  capital  condition  of  beauty  the  be 
trayal  of  art;  it  is  in  the  substitution  of  lighter 
and  more  natural  but  not  trivial  causes  for  the 
crude  propulsive  forces  of  an  elder  day — includ 
ing  Balzac's  day — that  it  chiefly  seeks  its  effect. 
The  realist  aims  at  attenuation  and  complexity  of 
motive,  finding  life  the  more  complex  the  more 
closely  it  is  scrutinized.  He  cultivates  also  free 
dom  and  simplicity  of  design  and  plumes  himself 
especially  on  the  absence  of  theatricalities  from 
his  work.  Accidents  happen  in  his  novel  too,  just 
as  they  happen  in  the  real  and  daily  world ;  but 
they  are  likely  to  be  not  of  the  "  moving  "  variety, 
and  furthermore,  they  are  often  not  set  right. 
Hence,  he  is  said  to  be  pessimistic,  and  to  deny  the 
principle  of  selection  in  art.  Howells  was  stung 
by  this  accusation  that  realism  adopted  absence 
of  selection  as  its  principle,  and  attributed  the 
misconception  to  a  polemical  delusion  of  Zola's. 

6 ' l  A  Humble  Remonstrance, ; '  in  Memories  <md  Portraits. 
Works,  Scribner  (1909),  XIII,  357.  Originally  appeared  in 
Longman's  Magazine,  December,  1884. 


His  Literary  Method  87 

Certainly  it  could  not  have  derived  from  Zola's 
practice,  or  from  the  practice  of  any  one  else ;  for 
it  is  difficult  indeed  to  imagine  any  art  the  result 
of  so  ludicrous  a  principle.  The  art  of  Howells  is 
the  result  of  the  nicest  selection,  but  it  selects  not 
to  eliminate  but  to  preserve  a  sense  of  "the  welter 
of  impressions  .  .  .  that  life  presents."  The 
freshness  and  charm  of  life — to  employ  the  ro 
mantic  term,  its  glow — as  well  as  the  infinite 
depths  of  its  sadness,  are  to  be  felt  with  poignancy 
only  as  the  impression  approaches  actuality,  as 
the  artist  has  caught  and  transfixed  upon  his  page 
something  of  life's  recognizable  complexity,  its 
confusion, — its  chaos,  if  you  like, — its  kaleido 
scopic  succession  of  sights,  and  its  inextricable 
tangling  of  motives.  The  manipulation  of  a  "cer 
tain  artificial  series  of  impressions  ...  all  elo 
quent  of  the  same  idea"  is  an  art  to  charm  the 
young  or  divert  the  weary.  With  whatever  skill 
it  be  accomplished,  it  robs  the  reader  of  his  most 
precious  privilege,  to  observe  life  in  the  actual 
living  through  the  medium  of  the  printed  page. 
And  this,  all  said  and  done,  is  the  abiding  privi 
lege,  the  permanent  urge  of  the  fiction  reader. 
Rare  souls  are  they  indeed  whose  joy  in  unifica 
tion  and  simplification  survives  many  decades  of 
novel  reading,  who  can  continue  their  delight  in 
what  the  realist  depreciatingly  terms  "stories." 
Now,  the  taste  for  stories,  one  gathers  from 
Howells,  is  a  very  natural  part  of  life,  but  a  part 
that  is  especially  characteristic  of  adolescence. 
He  has  dwelt  longest  upon  this  theme  in  his  de 
piction  of  Boyne  Kenton  (The  Kentons).  When 
a  grown  man  devotes  himself  to  romance  and  feels 


88  William  Dean  Howells 

that  realism  is  a  process  somehow  of  abstracting 
the  briskness  and  joy  from  life,  he  is  shown  not 
yet  to  have  outgrown  the  tastes  of  his  boyhood. 
He  wishes  to  find  in  the  world  of  modern  litera 
ture  a  world  comparable  to  that  in  which  moved 
the  Indians,  the  athletes,  or  the  heroes  of  chivalry 
who  once  delighted  him.  Not  all  members  of 
civilized  communities,  Howells  once  reminded  us 
in  "The  Editor's  Study, "  are  civilized  even  in 
their  habits;  much  less  should  we  expect  to  find 
them  sophisticated  in  their  tastes.  Nay,  he  ad 
mitted,  we  all  have  our  moods  of  barbarism,  which 
may  be  harmless,  but  are  not  "high  moods  or  for 
tunate  moments, "  when  we  relish  trapeze  per 
formances,  prestidigitation,  negro  minstrelsy,  and 
romantic  fiction.  Psycho-analysis,  in  treating  of 
the  "consolatory  mechanisms"  of  literature,  has 
accomplished  much  since  Howells  spoke  to  clarify 
our  notions  of  these  moods  and  to  make  us  less 
scornful  of  them;  but  our  esteem  for  the  intel 
lects  of  those  who  constantly  demand  romance  as 
consolatory  literature  has  not  greatly  increased. 
Normally,  after  we  have  consumed  a  large  quan 
tity  of  romances  in  youth,  the  taste  for  conjuring 
becomes  a  matter  of  occasional  mood  with  us,  and 
we  take  our  joy  and  find  our  consolation  not  in  the 
skilful  construction  of  an  imitation  of  life,  or  in 
an  improvement  upon  it,  but  in  a  mirror  held  up 
to  Nature  herself.  This  is  the  realist's  ideal,  to 
hold  the  mirror  up  to  Nature,  not  to  make  a  model 
illustrating  Nature,  in  hope  of  eliminating  the  un 
essential  and  confusing,  or  to  depart  from  her,  in 
the  childish  desire  to  construct  something  prettier 
or  more  amusing  than  anything  she  has  to  offer. 


His  Literary  Method  89 

The  manifesto  of  1882,  the  Century  essay  on 
Henry  James,  declares  not  only  that  the  new 
school  "studies  human  nature  much  more  in  its 
wonted  aspects,  and  finds  its  ethical  and  dramatic 
examples  in  the  operation  of  lighter  but  really  not 
less  vital  motives,"6  but  that  the  " stories " — 
meaning  specifically  in  this  connection,  plots — 
were  all  told  long  ago.  Human  character,  it  main 
tains,  is  the  novelist's  proper  field,  and  any  con 
triving  of  plots  is  to  be  discouraged  as  false  and 
mechanical.  Stevenson  offered  the  writer  a 
choice:  he  might  either  let  his  characters  make 
the  plot  or  provide  the  characters  necessary  to 
work  out  a  preconceived  scheme  of  events.  For 
the  realist,  the  second,  with  whatever  dexterity  it 
be  accomplished,  is  bound  to  result  in  the  incom 
parably  lower  form  of  art.  Every  event,  barring 
chance  and  accident,  must  grow  out  of  human 
character;  and  (I  think  it  was  Mr.  John  Galswor 
thy  who  put  it  in  three  words)  "plot  cannot  char 
acterize."  Turgeniev  is  said  to  have  begun  his 
stories  by  sketching  the  biography  of  each  person 
age,  formulating  as  completely  as  possible  the 
tastes,  habits,  and  traits  of  each,  with  exhaustive 
genealogical  researches  (his  readers  may  well  be 
lieve)  before  thinking  at  all  of  what  they  were  to 
do,  into  what  complications  their  respective  pro 
pensities  were  to  lead  them.  Then,  thoroughly  fa 
miliar  with  his  group  of  imaginary  people,  he 
needed  only  to  bring  them  together  into  some  re 
lationship,  when  they  would  proceed  to  act  out 
the  drama  for  themselves.  The  ideal  method, 
whether  actually  realized  or  not,  is  for  the  artist 

•"Henry  James,  Jr."  in  the  Century  (1882),  3(n.  B.)  :28. 


90  William  Dean  Howells 

to  refrain  from  all  management  of  affairs,  con 
ceiving  his  office  to  be  that  of  reporter,  not  stage 
director.  It  would  be  a  generalization  of  the 
"  glittering "  variety,  but  I  imagine  it  would  an 
swer  pretty  well  the  feeling  of  the  extreme  realist, 
to  say  that  the  plot  is  the  beginning  of  a  romantic 
tale,  and  upon  its  construction  the  romancer  ex 
pends  his  arduous  labor,  while  the  characters 
themselves  begin  a  realistic  story,  the  plot  being 
the  inevitable  result  rather  than  the  conscious 
aim.  The  realist,  Howells  would  say,  writes 
"from  the  beginning  forward,  and  never  from  the 
ending  backward. ' ' 7  Writing  from  the  ending 
backward  is,  of  course,  precisely  what  Stevenson 
and  Poe  recommend  in  their  celebrated  essays  on 
the  method  of  composition. 

Here  again  Howells  is  characteristically  the 
extremist.  His  admiration  for  the  Spanish  pica 
resque  will  be  recalled.  He  urges  literary  youth 
to  emulate  its  freedom  in  structure.  He  would 
have  no  manner  of  prevision,  entire  dependence 
being  placed  upon  revision.  If  it  be  found  difficult 
to  imagine  Turgeniev's  perfection  the  result  of 
such  a  method,  we  are  informed  that  the  inspira 
tion  of  freedom  from  pre-established  design  is 
capable  of  crowning  a  work  with  "unimagined 
beauty."  The  writer  as  he  proceeds  is  educated 
out  of  his  mediocrity.  For  example,  the  follow 
ing  account  informs  how  Shakespeare  was  prob 
ably  educated  by  the  composition  of  his  immortal 
Hamlet : 

T"The  Counsel   of   Literary  Age,"   in   Imaginary  Interviews 
(1910),  p.  290. 


His  Literary  Method  91 

"  Probably  the  playwright  started  with  the  no 
tion  of  making  Hamlet  promptly  kill  his  step 
father,  rescue  Ophelia  from  the  attempt  to  climb 
out  over  the  stream  on  a  willow  branch,  forgive 
his  erring  mother  as  more  sinned  against  than 
sinning,  welcome  Laertes  back  to  Denmark,  and 
with  the  Ghost  of  his  father  blessing  the  whole 
group,  and  Polonius  with  his  arm  in  a  sling,  se 
verely  but  not  fatally  wounded,  form  the  sort  of 
stage  picture,  as  the  curtain  went  down,  that  has 
sent  audiences  home,  dissolved  in  happy  tears, 
from  so  many  theatres.  But  Shakespeare,  being  a 
dramatist  as  well  as  a  playwright,  learned  from 
Hamlet  himself  that  Hamlet  could  not  end  as  he 
had  meant  him  to  end.  Hamlet,  in  fact,  could  not 
really  end  at  all,  and,  in  the  sort  of  anticlimax  in 
which  the  tragedy  closes,  he  must  rise  from  death, 
another  and  a  truer  ghost  than  the  buried  majesty 
of  Denmark,  and  walk  the  world  forever. "  8 

In  this  matter  of  plot  the  realist  has  his  most 
serious  difficulty  with  the  unskilled  reader;  and 
the  quarrel  usually  resolves  into  a  rebellion  on 
the  part  of  the  "savage"  against  the  ending  of 
the  story.  It  is  true  that  the  tawdry  and  theatri 
cal  finale  that  delighted  another  generation  with 
the  spectacle  of  every  one  from  lord  and  lady  to 
maid  and  butler  ecstatically  falling  into  each 
other's  arms,  with  the  villain  safe  in  the  arms  of 
God  or  the  law,  has  long  since  been  discarded  by 
writers  of  any  pretensions  to  modernity.  The 
crudest  witness,  however  he  may  applaud  such  a 
delightful  consummation,  realizes  that  for  the 

8 "The  Counsel  of  Literary  Age,"  in  Imaginary  Interviews 
(1910),  p.  289. 


92  William  Dean  Howells 

nonce  he  has  forsaken  this  ill-ordered  world  and 
its  disappointments.  Nevertheless,  even  in  the 
most  serious  work,  it  is  still  demanded  that  the 
ending  be  right.  Almost  any  amount  of  cruel 
truth  will  be  endured  throughout  the  novel,  if 
only,  in  some  subtle  manner,  it  be  contrived  to 
evade  what  the  magazines  used  to  advise  their 
contributors  to  shun — the  "artistic  ending. " 

This  is  a  matter,  however,  upon  which  readers 
have  small  cause  to  quarrel  with  Howells.  Henry 
James,  indeed,  found  no  endings  in  life,  no  "sto 
ries,  ' '  only  episodes ;  hence,  conceiving  the  height 
of  veracity  to  be  attained  by  transcribing  our  ex 
istence  in  its  episodical  nature,  he  declined  to  end 
many  of  his  compositions  at  all.  But  such  per 
versity  Howells  only  commended  from  afar.  He 
found  definite  endings  in  life,  and  constantly  sup- 
plied  them  in  his  fiction.  He  has,  in  fact,  been  ac 
cused  of  bidding  for  popularity  in  his  easy  de- 
scensions  to  the  conventional.  Without  the  pre 
sumption  of  attributing  such  a  motive,  one  may 
safely  say  that  he  was  rather  too  fond  of  giving 
his  characters  in  marriage. 

Aristotle  speaks  for  new  schools  as  well  as  old. 
He  voiced  a  timeless  truth  for  the  narrative  art 
when  he  prescribed  for  the  drama  a  beginning,  a 
middle,  and  an  end.  No  story  is  brought  about 
except  through  an  unstable  situation;  and  no 
meaning  can  be  given  a  story  except  by  resolving 
that  situation  to  some  sort  of  concluding  status. 
The  common  misapprehension  not  only  of  readers 
but  of  artists  themselves  lies  in  the  assumption 
that  in  discarding  marriage,  death,  and  like  ca 
tastrophes,  this  concluding  status  is  discarded. 


His  Literary  Method  93 

Henry  James  and  Howells  were  at  one  in  their  so 
phistication,  realizing  that  a  conclusion  may  be 
wholly  spiritual.  In  the  case  of  many  earlier  real 
ists,  we  can  see  that  the  novelist's  aesthetics  did 
not  keep  pace  with  his  widening  and  deepening 
comprehension  of  life.  Some  of  the  clumsy  intro 
ductions  and  conclusions  of  Balzac  and  Turgeniev, 
for  example,  bear  witness  to  an  art  not  only  in 
advance  of  the  readers  to  whom  they  seem  loath 
to  commit  it,  but  ever  so  little  beyond  their  own 
understanding  of  its  fineness.  Can  one  imagine 
Turgeniev 's  Lisa  (Nest  of  Nobles)  inconclusive? 
Yet  hear  him : 

"  'And  is  that  the  end?'  the  unsatisfied  reader 
may  perhaps  ask.  'What  became  of  Lavretsky 
afterwards?  and  of  Liza!'  But  what  can  one  say 
about  people  who  are  still  alive,  but  who  have 
already  quitted  the  worldly  stage?  Why  should 
we  turn  back  to  them?  It  is  said  that  Lavretsky 
has  visited  the  distant  convent  in  which  Liza  has 
hidden  herself — and  has  seen  her.  .  .  ." 

Old  notions  such  as  the  poetic  justice  that  awarded 
happiness  to  virtue  and  punishment  to  vice  were 
long  ago  consigned  to  the  realm  of  fairy  tales,  and 
their  extinction  in  serious  fiction  has  naturally 
wrought  havoc  with  old-fashioned  methods  of 
story-telling ;  but  it  is  lamentable  that  their  pass 
ing  should  have  given  rise  to  the  notion  that  the 
higher  art  must  consist  in  being  inconclusive. 

We  arrive  here  at  a  matter  in  which  the  ro 
mancers  are  more  deeply  deserving  of  antipathy. 
They  have  not  merely,  in  perpetuating  the  old 
convention  of  poetic  justice,  pandered  to  the  "un- 


94  William  Dean  Howclls 

official  sentimentalism, "  to  borrow  the  admirable 
phrase  of  Mr.  Conrad,  that  is  always  with  us,  not 
merely  divorced  the  novel  from  life  by  simplifica 
tion  of  motive  and  theatric  design;  they  have  in 
their  reliance  on  action,  exalting  the  overt  and 
often  meaningless  event  above  the  motive,  brought 
themselves  to  impotence  in  the  depiction  of  spirit 
ual  crises.  They  prove  the  power  of  the  spirit  of 
man  by  appeal  to  miracles.  Theirs  is  the  artistic 
faith  that  demands  a  sign  and  as  such  has  alien 
ated  from  itself  all  honest  and  inquiring  hearts. 
If  you  would  see  the  spiritual  breakdown  of  an 
art  which  displays  in  many  respects  an  admirable 
solicitude  for  the  realities  but  which  in  its  final 
appeal  concedes  to  the  popular  demand  for  mira 
cles,  witness  the  orgy  of  expiation  in  which  Mr. 
William  Allen  White,  when  he  came  to  finish  A 
Certain  Rich  Man,  felt  it  necessary  to  close  the 
career  of  John  Barclay.  It  is  not  enough  that 
Barclay  restore  his  family  to  poverty  and  happi 
ness;  he  must  rise  from  the  fireplace,  where  he 
has  stirred  the  last  of  his  blazing  stock,  the  poker 
in  one  hand,  bless  the  reunion  of  his  daughter  and 
her  lover  with  the  other,  and  go  out  to  a  heroic 
death.  And  his  mother,  when  she  learns  that  he 
has  sacrificed  his  life  to  rescue  a  woman  of  bad 
reputation  from  drowning,  must  lift  her  arms 
heavenward  arid  cry:  "Mine  eyes  have  seen  the 
glory  of  the  coming  of  the  Lord."  Compare  this 
with  the  regeneration  of  Dryfoos,  whose  avarice 
also  brought  death  to  his  own  flesh  and  blood,  and 
think  of  the  benediction  that  descended  upon  Silas 
Lapham  as  the  reward  of  his  less  tragic  coming 
to  social  consciousness : 


His  Literary  Method  95 

' '  In  the  shadow  of  his  disaster  they  returned  to 
something  like  their  old,  united  life ;  they  were  at 
least  all  together  again ;  and  it  will  be  intelligible 
to  those  whom  life  has  blessed  with  vicissitude, 
that  Lapham  should  come  home  the  evening  after 
he  had  given  up  everything  to  his  creditors,  and 
should  sit  down  to  his  supper  so  cheerful  that 
Penelope  could  joke  with  him  in  the  old  way,  and 
tell  him  that  she  thought  from  his  looks  they  had 
concluded  to  pay  him  a  hundred  cents  on  every 
dollar  he  owed  them. ' ' 9 

The  people  still  clamor  for  a  sign,  just  as  they 
revel  in  the  horrors  that  Jonathan  Edwards 
preached ;  but  they  will  not  always  do  so.  The  au 
thentic  peace  of  Silas  Lapham  will  yet  move  the 
hearts  of  men,  and  long  after  the  Hebraic  furies 
of  John  Barclay  are  forgotten. 

It  is  worth  while  insisting  on  this  point,  so  much 
has  the  demand  for  action  that  is  virile  and  red- 
blooded  done  to  emasculate  our  fiction  and  to  keep 
it  on  the  level  of  puerile  entertainment.  It  is  al 
most  the  business  of  a  fiction  absorbed  in  action 
to  misconceive  the  nature  of  emotional  crises. 
And  especially  does  it  busy  itself  disseminating 
the  notion  that  tragedy  and  catastrophe  are  the 
circumstances  most  provocative  of  character  reve 
lation.  Howells  pointed  out  a  thousand  times 
how  the  inner  life,  which  should  be  the  humanist's 
chief  concern,  is  checked  and  ceases  in  the  imme- 
diate  presence  of  catastrophe,  in  so  far  as  the  dis 
aster  produces  any  effect  whatever.  He  further 
maintained  that  great  changes  in  character  are 
rare  and  isolated  phenomena,  and  that  when  they 

9  The  Eise  of  Silas  Lapham  (1884),  p.  495. 


96  William  Dean  Howells 

do  occur  they  are  obscure  in  their  causes  and 
gradual  in  their  operation.  He  was  at  great  pains 
in  A  Hazard  of  New  Fortunes  to  show  how  incom 
plete  was  the  regeneration  of  Dryfoos  effected  by 
the  violent  death  of  his  son  Conrad,  and  in  New 
Leaf  Mills  to  show  how  much  more  complex  an 
effect  than  reconciliation  was  wrought  in  the  sim 
ple  soul  of  Overdale,  the  disgruntled  miller,  by 
the  rescue  of  his  boy  from  drowning.  I  do  not 
know  that  he  was  not  excessive  in  his  scorn  of 
those  Baphometic  moments  that  were  an  unfailing 
resource  with  the  older  story-tellers ;  but  that  was 
inevitable  in  one  whose  message  was  so  deeply 
concerned  with  the  real  and  the  inward  man. 

George  Eliot  had  a  great  deal  of  this  power  to 
compel  the  glance  inward  upon  the  secret  places 
of  the  soul,  to  make  an  inhibited  impulse  more 
impressive  than  an  action,  a  potential  graver  than 
a  consequence.  She  could  on  occasion  make  a  few 
words  of  moral  conviction  more  touching  than 
chapters  of  sin  and  repentance.  Such  were  the 
words  of  Maggie  Tulliver,  for  example,  when  she 
left  Stephen  Guest  at  the  inn  in  Mudport : 

"But  she  raised  her  eyes  and  met  his  with  a 
glance  that  was  filled  with  the  anguish  of  regret — 
not  with  yielding.  '  No — not  with  my  whole  heart 
and  soul,  Stephen, '  she  said,  with  timid  resolution. 
'  I  have  never  consented  to  it  with  my  whole  mind. 
There  are  memories  and  affections,  and  longings 
after  perfect  goodness,  that  have  such  a  strong 
hold  on  me ;  they  would  never  quit  me  for  long ; 
they  would  come  back  and  be  pain  to  me — repent 
ance.  I  couldn't  live  in  peace  if  I  put  the  shadow 
of  a  wilful  sin  between  mvself  and  God.  I  have 


His  Literary  Method  97 

caused  sorrow  already — I  know — I  feel  it;  but  I 
have  never  deliberately  consented  to  it ;  I  have 
never  said,  "They  shall  suffer,  that  I  may  have 
joy."  It  has  never  been  my  will  to  marry  you; 
if  you  were  to  win  consent  from  the  momentary 
triumph  of  my  feeling  for  you,  you  would  not 
have  my  whole  soul.  If  I  could  wake  back  again 
into  the  time  before  yesterday,  I  would  choose  to 
be  true  to  my  calmer  affections,  and  live  without 
the  joy  of  love/  " 

The  realism  of  William  Dean  Howells  and 
Henry  James  is  distinguished  by  its  emphasis  on 
such  interior  states.  This  is  why,  despite  the 
chasmal  difference  that  separates  these  two  art 
ists,  even  dull  readers  are  sensible  of  kinship 
between  them.  This  is  why  Howells,  who  could 
not  have  approved  the  departure  of  Henry  James 
from  the  field  of  common  beauties  to  follow  what 
he  called  the  "aesthetic  adventure, "  on  which 
many  before  him  had  been  led  to  disaster,  but 
which  with  him  culminated  beautifully  in  The 
Golden  Bowl,  could  find  in  his  work  an  "ever- 
deepening  insight, "  and  why  James  could  con 
tinue  his  delight  in  Howells.  This  is  why  to  the 
vulgar  or  to  the  youthful  mind  nothing  is  accom 
plished  in  the  novels  of  either.  The  classic  in 
eptitude  about  Turgeniev  in  George  Moore's 
Confessions  of  a  Young  Man  puts  them  together, 
and  the  cry  of  this  exasperated  young  man  over  a 
story  of  James '  might  as  well  have  been  over  one 
of  Howells ': 

"Why  does  a  woman  never  leave  the  house  with 
her  lover?  Why  does  a  man  never  kill  a  man? 


98  William  Dean  Howells 

Why  does  a  man  never  kill  himself  f    Why  is  noth 
ing  ever  accomplished?" 

To  both  of  these  writers  the  beautiful  motive  is 
more    significant   than   the   beautiful   deed,   the 
vicious  motive  more  terrifying  than  crime.    The 
lesson  they  have  to  teach  in  common  is  that  what  V 
people  do  is  of  infinitely  less  importance  than  p 
xwhat  they  are. 

What  Henry  James  lost  through  his  lack  of 
feeling  for  common  reality,  because  he  found  his 
native  land  dull,  crude,  and  uninspiring,  Howells 
gained.  This  one  may  call  a  sense  of  the  integrity 
of  life,  the  most  precious  thing  shared  by  Howells 
and  Balzac,  whom  James  called  his  master.  A 
fair  portion  of  James*  writing  interests  us  onlyl 
by  its  exceeding  fineness  and  cunning  of  texture ;  I 
it  weaves  life  into  a  shimmering  and  iridescent 
tapestry;  it  is  memorable  in  vividness,  delicacy,' 
and  variety  of  nuance.  Such  a  realism  may  with 
out  deprecation  be  distinguished  as  decadent,  not 
degenerate  in  the  sense  of  Lombroso  and  Nordau, 
but  specialized,  as  Mr.  Havelock  Ellis  makes  clear 
in  his  study  of  Karl  Huysmans,  where  he  speaks 
of  the  breaking  up  of  the  whole  for  the  benefit  of 
its  parts.10  The  classic  realism  of  The  Rise  of 
Silas  Lapham  and  The  Landlord  at  Lion's  Head, 
on  the  other  hand,  prizes  more  consistently  the 

10 ' '  Technically,  a  decadent  style  is  only  such  in  relation  to  a 
classic  style.  It  is  simply  a  further  development  of  a  classic 
style,  a  further  specialisation,  the  homogeneous,  in  Spencerian 
phraseology,  having  become  heterogeneous.  The  first  is  beauti 
ful  because  the  parts  are  subordinated  to  the  whole;  the  second 
is  beautiful  because  the  whole  is  subordinated  to  the  parts. 
Among  our  own  early  prose  writers  Sir  Thomas  Browne  repre 
sents  the  type  orf  decadence  in  style.  Swift's  prose  is  classic, 
Pater's  decadent.  •  '—Affirmations  (ed.  1915),  p.  175. 


His  Literary  Method  99 

larger  contours.  It  is  as  national  as  Balzac;  an 
overarching  moral  purpose  proves  it  no  distant 
Jdn  to  George  Eliot  and  Hawthorne. 

Silas  Lapham  is  as  true  to  the  economic  and 
social  conditions  of  our  Reconstruction  Period  as 
Cesar  Birotteau  to  the  life  of  Paris  during  the 
Restoration.  The  role  played  by  Mrs.  Lapham  is 
triumphantly  American  in  its  conception,  just  as 
that  of  Constance  is  perfect  in  its  depiction  of  the 
Parisian  bourgeoise,  who  presides  at  her  hus 
band's  cash-desk  and  knows  his  daily  sales  to  the 
sou.  The  American  paint  manufacturer  yields 
nothing  in  essential  simplicity,  in  business  sense, 
in  vanity,  in  hazardous  social  aspirations,  in  that 
family  affection  which  is  the  most  warmly  human 
feature  of  either  chronicle,  to  the  Parisian  per 
fumer  who  becomes  through  arduous  stages  simi 
lar  to  his  the  proprietor  of  a  prosperous  estab 
lishment,  deputy-mayor  of  his  arrondissement, 
and  chevalier  of  the  Legion  of  Honor.  But  James ? 
self-made  man,  Christopher  Newman  of  The 
American,  succeeds  as  a  fictional  creation,  so  to 
speak,  on  his  own  merits.  And  it  is  because  he» 
bears  so  little  relation  to  his  externals — to  his 
native  land,  to  the  common  moralities,  or  even  to 
his  money — that  he  fails  to  sustain  comparison 
with  either  of  the  others* 

Each  of  the  three  offers  us  the  spectacle  of 
latent  strength  of  character  emerging  under  stress 
of  adversity.  But  Christopher's  drama,  in  so  far 
as  it  is  not  peculiarly  his  own,  is  universal;  it 
wants  that  power  of  conviction  that  comes  from 
relevance  to  French  or  to  American  conditions. 
The  supreme  moment,  when  the  bottom  falls  out 


ioo          William  Dean  Howells 

of  his  contemplated  revenge  on  the  Bellegardes; 
when,  in  the  darkness  of  Notre  Dame,  after  his 
walk  through  the  Rue  d'Enfer,  he  realizes  that 
such  things  are  not  his  game,  is  a  spiritual  crisis 
of  universal  import.  It  is  when  we  inquire  what 
is  Christopher's  game  that  his  insufficiency  beside 
Cesar  Birotteau  or  Silas  Lapham  becomes  appar 
ent.  Neither  his  aims  nor  his  origins  are  veri 
fiable  in  the  American  commercial  world  he  is 
supposed  to  represent.  He  is  an  artist  and  noth 
ing  else,  an  aesthetic  impressionist  who  doesn't 
quite  understand  how  to  be  one,  an  awkward 
recruit  of  Henry  James.  Save  for  his  remarks 
on  the  difficulties  of  achieving  the  life  of  elegant 
leisure,  his  origins  have  slipped  from  view.  So 
slight  a  hold  do  his  business  habits  have  on  him 
that  we  finally  cease  to  believe  in  his  money  at  all 
and  suspect  a  rich  uncle  somewhere  in  the  back 
ground.  Wealth  like  Christopher 's  is  won  by  men 
like  Silas  Lapham,  who  glorifies  the  landscape 
with  advertisements  of  his  mineral  paint,  or  like 
Cesar  Birotteau,  to  whom  a  picture  of  Hero  and 
Leander  suggests  that  the  ancients  did  not  put  oil 
on  their  hair  for  nothing. 

What  makes  Silas  Lapham  the  unforgettable  I 
representative  of  his  type — the  supreme  charac-1 
terization  of  the  self-made  American — is  that  he  1 
is  real  inside  and  outside.     He  is  as  definitely 
attached  to  New  England  as  John  Barclay  to 
Kansas  and  has  spiritual  reactions  as  authentic 
and  impressive  as  Christopher  Newman's.    And 
in  this  concern  for  the  realities  both  internal  and 
external  resides  the  secret  of  Howells'  art  and 
the  source  of  his  power.    This  appealed  to  him  as 


His  Literary  Method  101 

the  condition  on  which  the  novel  could  be  fine  art 
and  at  the  same  time  fulfill  an  instructional  office  ; 
and  realism,  as  I  have  said,  presented  itself  to  his 
view  as  a  final  mediation  between  didacticism  and 
an  art  that  thought  it  could  exist  for  itself.  He* , 
was  too  confident  that  the  novel  did  fulfill  a  use 
ever  to  urge  it ;  but  he  especially  valued  books  like 
Anna  Karenina  and  /  Malavoglia,  which  bring 
home  to  us  how  inevitably  we  are  part  of  a  social 
order,  whether  that  order  be  regarded  as  man- 
made  or  divine;  books  which  present  a  conflict 
between  that  order  and  a  present  and  personal 
happiness  under  circumstances  so  verifiable  as  to 
stir  us  into  an  awareness  of  our  own  capacities 
for  good  or  evil.  Among  native  works  he  found  - 
the  novels  of  Mr.  Robert  Herrick  especially  full 
of  this  quickening  power.  ' '  They  are  not  only  ter 
rible,  ' '  he  said, ' '  but  they  are  terrifying  in  certain 
climaxes,  such  as  that  awful  hour  in  'The  Com 
mon  Lot/  when  the  architect  who  has  'stood  in* 
with  the  jerry-builder  sees  the  victims  of  his 
fraudulent  construction  drop  into  the  roaring  vol 
cano  which  his  'fire-proof  edifice  has  become.  As 
you  look  on  with  the  wretched  man,  whose  moral 
ruin  has  been  so  reasonable,  so  logical,  you  become 
one  with  him  in  your  consciousness  of  like  possi 
bilities  in  yourself.  When  a  novelist  can  do  this 
with  his  reader,  he  has  taken  himself  out  of  the 
category  of  futile  villain-mongers  and  placed 
himself  in  the  high,  clear  air  where  George  Eliot 
discovered  in  our  common  nature  her  immortal 
Tito."11 

u<  'Kobert  Herrick "  in  the  North  American  Review    (1909), 
189:816. 


1O2  William  Dean  Howells 

It  is  the  glory  of  George  Eliot  and  of  Tolstoi 
in  the  freest  and  most  untrammeled  reaches  of 
their  art  to  have  translated  these  simple  problems 
into  vividly  real,  ineffaceable,  and  universally 
intelligible  terms.  Howells,  who  wings  a  lower 
flight  than  either,  has  been  no  less  triumphant  in 
revealing  the  operation  of  identical  motives  in 
lighter  but  profoundly  significant  aspects.  His 
particular  metier  is  the  analysis  of  the  moral  life 
in  its  wonted  routine,  as  it  fails  of  the  clarifying 
and  compelling  support  of  tremendous  crises.  It 
is,  in  fact,  characteristic  of  his  people  to  learn 
very  little  on  the  earthly  sojourn.  Those  like 
Silas  Lapham,  who  learn  comparatively  much, 
whose  opportunities,  so  to  speak,  have  been  com 
mensurate  with  their  capacities,  are  rare  in  his 
work,  and  should  be  correspondingly  popular  with 
readers.  His  supreme  artistic  creation,  Jeff 
Durgin,  the  landlord  at  Lion's  Head,  is  a  study, 
without  parallel  in  our  literature,  of  the  tragedy 
of  worldly  success  which  meets  no  effective  oppo 
sition,  of  the  insidious  selfishness  which  has  its 
way  with  a  nature  too  strong  to  be  tempted  into 
crime  and  too  fortunate  to  be  called  to  a  reckon 
ing  with  itself  in  any  large  moral  crisis.  It  is  a 
subtle  and  marvellous  weighing  of  the  imponder 
able — of  the  imponderable  elements  which  we  can 
observe  in  ourselves  and  our  brothers  making  for 
callousness  of  soul  and  insufficient  living. 

This  tremendous  moral  force  with  which  real 
ism  has  endowed  modern  art,  so  different  from 
the  false  and  clumsy  didacticism  of  an  earlier  day, 
was  to  Howells  the  largest  aspect  of  the  school  he 
championed.  Veracity  to  life  was  his  test  of 


His  Literary  Method  103 

morality  in  art,  but  it  was  more ;  it  is  scarcely  too 
much  to  say  that  with  him  it  was  a  religion  of  art. 
And  this  ethical,  even  religious,  import  of  realism, 
so  far  from  being  at  variance  with  its  aesthetic 
credo,  he  believed  the  very  source  and  origin  of 
all  sound  artistry.  The  endeavor  to  be  true  not 
symbolically  but  actually  has  indeed  been  the 
greatest  stimulus  to  technique  that  the  art  of 
fiction  has  known. 

The  books  that  Howells  calls  upon  us  to  admire 
as  perfect  specimens  of  realistic  art  are  those 
which  draw  a  convincing  power  in  the  illustration 
of  human  conduct  from  a  verisimilitude  that  is 
not  merely  national  but  regional,  and  from  which 
all  evidences  of  authorial  manipulation  have  been 
removed.  I  have  just  mentioned  Giovanni 
Verga's  beautiful  story,  I  Malavoglia,  translated 
by  Mary  A.  Craig  under  the  title,  The  House  by 
the  Medlar-Tree,  and  to  show  how  far  the  road 
toward  perfection  in  these  matters  has  been  trav 
ersed  there  is  none  better.  "When  we  talk  of 
the  great  modern  movement  towards  reality, " 
says  Howells  in  his  introduction  to  the  Harper 
translation  (1890),  "we  speak  without  the  docu 
ments  if  we  leave  this  book  out  of  the  count,  for  I 
can  think  of  no  other  novel  in  which  the  facts  have 
been  more  faithfully  reproduced,  or  with  a  pro- 
founder  regard  for  the  poetry  that  resides  in  facts 
and  resides  nowhere  else." 

The  reader  who  approaches  1  Malavoglia  in 
spirits  for  a  Crawford  romance  will  have  his  diffi 
culties  with  the  opening  chapters.  There,  nothing 
is  announced,  simplified,  isolated,  or  explained; 
no  clues  are  thrown  out  to  excite  the  curiosity.  It 


1O4          William  Dean  Howells 

is  an  actual  transportation  to  the  little  Sicilian 
fishing-hamlet  where  Padron  'Ntoni  and  his  fam 
ily,  Don  Silvestro,  La  Vespa,  Cousin  Agostino 
Goosefoot,  Uncle  Crucifix,  Nunziata,  a  bewildering 
number,  are  simultaneously  glimpsed  at  their 
daily  occupations  and  gossip.  By  and  by  the 
reader  who  lives  with  them  in  Trezza  learns  to 
know  them,  much  as  he  would  become  acquainted 
with  the  natives  of  any  village  in  which  he  might 
take  up  a  residence,  through  their  daily  acts,  and 
the  frequently  misleading  testimony  of  their 
neighbors.  Far  from  a  manipulator  of  events, 
Verga  does  not  seem  even  a  competent  guide. 
The  whole  thing  has  been  cunningly  done  behind 
the  scenes,  and  will  be  avoided  or  promptly  aban 
doned  by  those  who  take  their  delight  in  watching 
the  author  simplify,  unify,  interpret,  or  what  not. 
The  tragic  degeneration  of  'Ntoni's  'Ntoni  is  as 
obscure  in  its  causes  as  that  of  any  young  friend 
of  ours  who  goes  to  the  bad.  With  nothing 
worked  up  for  effect,  it  is  a  tragedy  of  thrilling 
interest.  There  is  an  idyllic  sweetness  in  it,  too, 
and  humor ;  a  tender  beauty  along  with  the  dark 
ness  and  sordidness.  There  is,  as  Howells  points 
out,  a  profound  poetry  in  its  facts;  and  its  sad 
ness  is  the  sadness  of  life  everywhere,  especially 
where,  as  among  such  simple  peoples  as  those  of 
Southern  Italy  and  Sicily,  men  have  not  yet 
learned  the  lessons  of  humanity  and  brotherly 
love;  and  finally,  its  lesson  is  the  lesson  of  life 
everywhere : 

"  There,  as  in  every  part  of  the  world,  and  in 
the  whole  world,  goodness  brings  not  pleasure,  not 


His  Literary  Method  105 

happiness,  but  it  brings  peace  and  rest  to  the  soul, 
and  lightens  all  burdens ;  and  the  trial  and  the  sor 
row  go  on  for  good  and  evil  alike ;  only,  those  who 
choose  the  evil  have  no  peace. " 

Such  supreme  veracity  as  that  of  Verga  imposes 
upon  the  artist  a  certain  restriction.  No  observer, 
after  a  mere  season  of  residence  among  them, 
could  write  as  he  has  done  of  his  fishermen. 
Verga  knows  his  characters,  inwardly  and  out 
wardly;  he  knows  the  minutiae  of  their  existence, 
their  habits,  their  traits,  and  their  propensities; 
he  knows  their  lightest  and  their  profoundest 
thought.  He  knows  their  milieu:  every  shape, 
every  color  in  the  eyes  of  his  fisherfolk  is  seen  of 
him ;  the  sea  they  strive  with  is  his  sea ;  the  grass 
beneath  their  feet,  his  grass.  And  every  realist 
must,  in  a  sense  not  demanded  of  the  unifier  and 
simplifier,  "know  his  characters  and  their  milieu. 
George  Eliot  had  her  Romola,  and  Flaubert  his 
Salammbo,  astonishing  both,  and  very  precious  in 
their  respective  values,  but  both  artists  came 
home  to  do  their  most  realistic  work. 

This  is,  however,  a  topic  with  which  the  dog 
matist  may  not  be  allowed  to  play  loose.  Sir 
Walter  Besant,  in  his  contribution  to  the  con 
troversy  that  evoked  Henry  James '  "Art  of 
Fiction, "  as  well  as  Stevenson's  not  very  humble 
remonstrance.,  came  so  near  dogmatism  as  half  to 
merit  James'  reproof.  Said  Besant: 

"A  young  lady  brought  up  in  a  quiet  country 
village  should  avoid  descriptions  of  garrison  life ; 
a  writer  whose  friends  and  personal  experiences 
belong  to  what  we  call  the  lower  middle  class 


io6          William  Dean  Howells 

should  carefully  avoid  introducing  his  characters 
into  society;  a  South-countryman  would  hesitate 
before  attempting  to  reproduce  the  North-country 
accent.  This  is  a  very  simple  rule,  but  one  to 
which  there  should  be  no  exception — never  to  go 
beyond  your  own  experience. ' 9 12 

"What  kind  of  experience  is  intended,"  asks 
James  with  some  pertinence,  "and  where  does  it 
begin  and  end?  Experience  is  never  limited,  and 
it  is  never  complete ;  it  is  an  immense  sensibility, 
a  kind  of  huge  spider-web  of  the  finest  silken 
threads  suspended  in  the  chamber  of  conscious 
ness,  and  catching  every  air-borne  particle  in  its 
tissue.  It  is  the  very  atmosphere  of  the  mind; 
and  when  the  mind  is  imaginative — much  more 
when  it  happens  to  be  that  of  a  man  of  genius — it 
takes  to  itself  the  faintest  hints  of  life,  it  converts 
the  very  pulses  of  the  air  into  revelations.  The 
young  lady  living  in  a  village  has  only  to  be  a 
damsel  upon  whom  nothing  is  lost  to  make  it  quite 
unfair  (as  it  seems  to  me)  to  declare  to  her  that 
she  shall  have  nothing  to  say  about  the  military. 
Greater  miracles  have  been  seen  than  that,  imagi 
nation  assisting,  she  should  speak  the  truth  about 
some  of  these  gentlemen."13 

This  elucidates  Mr.  G.  K.  Chesterton's  sage 
remarks  on  the  "godlike  power  of  guessing," 
which  seems  to  have  been  given  young  ladies  like 
Jane  Austen  and  Elizabeth  Barrett,  and  which  is 
not  quite  guessing  after  all. 

There  is  something  further  to  note  on  this  topic 

"Quoted  from  Clayton  Hamilton's  Materials  and  Methods  of 
Fiction  (1911),  p.  35. 

u  Partial  Portraits  (1888),  p.  388. 


His  Literary  Method  107 

than  the  danger  of  dogmatism.  In  our  country 
we  have  been  made  aware  of  some  of  the  dangers 
of  local  color  itself :  it  may  revert  to  its  origins  in 
the  romantic  desire  to  add  strangeness  to  beauty, 
or,  what  is  worse,  it  may  reduce  realism  to  the 
mechanical  sort  of  map-making  that  many  of  its 
detractors  think  it  is.  With  our  illimitable  diver 
sity  of  color  and  character,  the  desire  for  veracity 
that  Howells  did  so  much  to  awaken,  has  become 
a  passion.  Each  individual  has  found  a  way  to 
originality  in  the  cultivation  of  his  own  little 
garden-patch,  and  a  library  of  local  color  has 
resulted,  descriptive  in  the  aggregate  of  the  entire 
continent;  exactitude  has  been  made  a  cult;  an 
error  in  the  matter  of  a  bit  of  costume,  a  turn  of 
speech,  a  rock,  a  plant,  a  bird,  or  a  tree,  has  be 
come  a  serious  literary  offense.  One  debates  the 
origins  and  authenticity  of  provincial  terms  and 
customs  through  the  newspapers. 

Let  us  not  forget,  however,  now  that  the  reac 
tion  against  this  mechanical  accuracy  has  set  in, 
that  whatever  may  be  said  to  ridicule  it,  it  is  the 
expression  of  a  spirit  that  penetrates  to  the  heart 
of  literary  endeavor.  With  it  has  come  a  new 
technique,  which  promises  a  perfection  of  artistry, 
and,  more  wonderful  than  all  else,  that  spirit  of 
humanity  and  democracy  in  literature  which  was 
to  Howells  the  very  soul  of  realism.  Nothing  in 
our  literary  history  appeared  to  him  quite  so 
amazing  as  the  promptitude  with  which  the  effete 
romanticism  of  the  South,  so  direly  afflicted  with 
what  Mark  Twain  used  to  call  the  Walter  Scott 
disease,  when  once  it  took  the  breath  of  a  realistic 
life,  abandoned  its  former  absurdities,  and  became 


io8          William  Dean  Howells 

great  in  our  literature.  Yet  this,  he  believed, 
must  always  happen  when  the  sense  for  the  real  is 
awakened  and  the  pilgrimage  to  the  shrine  of 
Truth  begun.  Out-worn  ideals  are  discredited; 
" literature  (Howells'  translation  from  De  Sanc- 
tis,  the  historian  of  Italian  letters)  undergoes 
transformation.  The  ugly  stands  beside  the  beau 
tiful  ;  or  rather,  there  is  no  longer  ugly  or  beauti 
ful,  neither  ideal  nor  real,  neither  infinite  nor 
finite.  .  .  .  There  is  but  one  thing  only,  the  Liv 
ing.  "  Much  of  the  regional  fiction  developed 
under  the  sponsorship  of  Howells  may  presently 
pass  into  literary  history,  but  it  will  not  pass 
without  leaving  us  a  spiritual  heritage. 

Many  who  have  come  to  concede  the  superior 
power  of  real  life  to  unified  and  simplified  life, 
have  but  imperfectly  grasped  another  and  a  more 
technical  matter.  In  praising  Verga  for  with 
holding  his  hand  from  the  manipulation  of  events, 
we  but  suggested  the  superb  reticence  with  which 
he  refrains  from  any  comment  upon  them  or  upon 
the  persons  implicated  in  them.  "He  seems  to 
have  no  more  sense  of  authority  or  supremacy 
concerning  the  personages, "  says  Howells  in  his 
beautiful  introduction  to  The  House  by  the 
Medlar-Tree,  "than  any  one  of  them  would  have 
in  telling  the  story,  and  he  has  as  completely 
freed  himself  from  literosity  as  the  most  unlet 
tered  among  them."  The  thoroughly  modern 
artist,  who  holds  himself  related  to  the  scientist, 
remains  an  impassive  witness  of  his  drama;  his 
ideal  he  describes  as  one  of  objectivity,  detach 
ment,  self -obliteration.  Since  Howells  has  made 
many  critical  enemies  by  his  insistence  on  this 


His  Literary  Method  109 

point,  it  may  be  well  to  begin  by  enumerating  a 
few  of  the  things  that  this  ideal  does  not  imply. 
It  is  perhaps  unnecessary  to  explain  that  objec 
tivity  does  not  seek  to  limit  the  fictive  art  to  what 
is  decried  as  "mere  photography, "  which  usually 
comes  down  to  mean  depiction  through  the  media 
of  things  perceptible  to  the  five  senses.  There  is 
no  such  art  outside  the  minds  of  those  who  think 
realism  an  abandonment  of  the  principle  of  selec 
tion.  It  ought  to  be  stated,  however,  that  this 
ideal  does  not  deprive  the  novelist  of  his  power 
of  judgment ;  it  requires  him  to  preserve  the  in 
tegrity  of  his  genre  and  if  he  wish  to  discourse  on 
ethics  or  sociology  or  in  any  wise  to  state  criti 
cally  the  truths  he  has  discovered,  to  provide 
himself  with  a  preface.  It  is  a  very  different 
thing  from  Howells'  proposal  to  deny  the  critic 
the  right  to  pass  judgment  on  works  of  art.  A 
representation  of  life  that  achieves  the  condition 
of  art  is  necessarily  a  criticism  of  life,  and  the 
personal  explanation  of  the  author  could  not  make 
it  any  the  more  so.  Nor  can  self-obliteration, 
despite  the  destructive  sound  of  the  word,  make 
an  author's  work  any  the  less  his  own — any  the 
less,  as  Samuel  Butler  expresses  it,  his  portrait. 
No  valuable  personal  qualities  are  sacrificed  in 
withdrawing  an  artist's  license  to  plead,  explain, 
excuse,  or  interpret.  In  fact,  it  is  difficult  to  find 
the  admonition  to  detachment  a  restriction  in  any 
sense:  it  is  a  counsel  of  perfection  in  the  tech 
nique  of  pure  narrative. 

Comments  and  judgments  like  those  of  Thack 
eray,  sometimes  highly  valued  as  expressions  of 
the  author's  personality,  have  no  longer  a  place  in 


no          William  Dean  Howells 

representative  art.  A  dramatist,  Howells  went  so 
far  as  to  say  in  the  passage  that  brought  him  most 
notoriety,  would  scarcely  commit  a  more  grievous 
artistic  sin  should  he  spring  upon  the  boards 
during  the  presentation  of  his  play  and  explain 
the  action  to  the  audience  or  blame  his  characters 
publicly  for  their  misdeeds.  Such  manifestations 
of  personality  are  destructive  not  merely  of  artis 
tic  illusion  but  of  confidence  in  the  artist's  fair 
ness.  It  is  only  when  the  fictive  materials  are 
disposed  with  such  consummate  artistry  that  the 
awkward  explanation  and  interpretation  coun 
tenanced  by  literary  convention  do  not  stand 
between  the  most  sensitive  reader  and  the  pic 
tured  page,  that  we  feel  a  perfect  security  in  the 
author's  sense  of  justice.  Just  as  localism  in  its 
true  sense  furnishes  an  assurance  of  human  qual 
ity  in  an  author's  materials,  so  impersonality  in 
manner  affords  an  index  to  his  impartiality  in  the 
disposition  of  them.  Howells  indeed  found  Thack 
eray's  mannerisms,  far  from  deepening  the  illu 
sion,  as  Mr.  Brownell  maintained  in  his  spirited 
essay,14  not  merely  distracting,  but  definitely  asso 
ciated  with  the  great  Victorian's  propensities  to 
sentimentalism  and  satire. 

It  is  the  crowning  tribute  to  Thackeray's  great 
ness  as  an  artist,  thinks  Howells,  that  he  suc 
ceeded  in  being  poignantly  dramatic  in  spite  of 
his  tendency  "to  stand  about  in  his  scene,  talking 

M  Victorian  Prose  Masters  (1901),  the  entire  essay,  but  espe 
cially  pp.  9ff.  It  should  be  mentioned  that  Mr.  Brownell  affords 
a  distinguished  exception  to  the  rule  by  which  the  generality  of 
Thackeray's  defenders  have,  as  Professor  Brander  Matthews 
complains,  ignored  the  issue  and  argued  on  the  ground  of  vir 
tues  that  no  one  is  disposed  to  deny. 


His  Literary  Method  ill 

it  over  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  interrupting 
the  action,  and  spoiling  the  illusion  in  which  alone 
the  truth  of  art  resides."15  His  most  perfect 
character,  Becky  Sharp,  actually  succeeds  in  spite 
of  her  creator.  He  tries  in  vain  to  distract  us  by 
nudges,  whispers,  and  even  shouts: 

"He  is  boisterously  sarcastic  at  her  expense,  as 
if  she  were  responsible  for  the  defects  of  her  na 
ture,  and  must  be  punished  for  her  sins  as  well  as 
by  them.  His  morality  regarding  her  is  the  old 
conventional  morality  which  we  are  now  a  little 
ashamed  of,  but  in  his  time  and  place  he  could 
scarcely  have  any  other ;  after  all,  he  was  a  simple 
soul,  and  strictly  of  his  epoch.  A  later  and  sub 
tler  time  must  do  finer  justice  to  a  woman  badly 
born,  and  reared  in  dependence  and  repression; 
liberated  from  school  to  a  world  where  she  must 
fight  her  own  way;  taught  the  evil  consciousness 
of  the  fascination  which  she  had  but  which  she 
never  felt  for  men ;  married  to  a  reprobate  aristo 
crat  not  her  superior  in  nature,  and  distinctly  her 
inferior  in  mind ;  tempted  by  ambition  and  spurred 
by  necessity  the  greater  since  she  had  her  hus 
band  as  well  as  herself  to  care  for,  she  was  pre 
destined  to  the  course  she  ran ;  and  she  could  not 
have  run  any  other,  made  as  she  was,  so  clever, 
so  pretty,  so  graceful,  so  unprincipled."16 

At  the  climax  in  Becky's  career,  when  Rawdon 
enters  unexpectedly  upon  her  supper  scene  with 
Lord  Steyne,  the  author,  true  to  his  finer  instincts, 
holds  his  hand,  and  commits  his  work  to  the  read 
er's  intelligence.  But  there  is  one  false  and 

15  Criticism  and  Fiction  (1891),  p.  76. 
"Heroines  of  Fiction  (1901),  I,  194. 


112          William  Dean  Howells 

wrong  touch  in  this  great  and  intense  scene,  ex 
plains  Howells  with  penetrating  discernment, 
which  would  leave  the  reader  with  the  impression 
that  Rawdon  Crawley  is  somehow  better  than  she. 

Thus  do  authorial  manners  and  morals  go  hand 
in  hand.  Taine  realized  their  intimate  connection 
when,  in  contrasting  Thackeray's  treatment  of 
Becky  Sharp  with  Balzac's  of  Valerie  Marneffe 17 
("Balzac  aime  sa  Valerie"),  he  gave  currency  to 
this  line  of  criticism  and  set  subsequent  discussion 
of  the  topic  of  impersonality  to  revolving  about 
the  English  satirist  as  its  chief  victim. 

It  may  be  noted  parenthetically  that  while 
Howells  has  demonstrated  better  than  any  one 
else  how  manifestly  Becky  rises  superior  to  her 
creator,  he  was  not  impressed  by  the  possibility 
that  in  the  matter  of  "the  fascination  which  she 
had  but  which  she  never  felt  for  men"  she  suc 
cumbed  to  suppression.  Mr.  George  Moore  and 
Mr.  James  Huneker  are  of  the  opinion  that  she 
was  in  this  respect  overpowered  by  her  creator  in 
the  interests  of  mid-Victorian  morality.18 

The  attitude  of  sympathetic  detachment  is  the 
crucial  feature  of  the  Howells  technique,  and 
virtually  involves  the  abandonment  of  senti- 
mentalism  and  satire  as  novelistic  moods.  It  was 
with  him  a  native  as  well  as  an  acquired  attitude, 
his  incapacity  for  satire  being  in  the  first  instance 
a  temperamental  inheritance  and  in  the  second  the 
result  of  reasoned  conviction  after  the  period  of 
his  debauchery  with  Pope  and  Thackeray,  during 

"Histoire  de  la  Litttrature  Anglaise  (ed.  1911),  V,  the  entire 
chapter,  but  especially  pp.  11  Off. 

18  James  Huneker,  Ivory  Apes  and  Peacocks  (1915),  p.  313. 


His  Literary  Method  113 

which  he  thought  that  the  superior  attitude 
toward  life  was  the  literary  thing.  When  he  came 
to  deal  with  the  problem  of  social  snobbery, — and 
it  was  the  first  seriously  to  engage  his  artistic 
attention,  although  his  interest  in  the  spiritual 
snobbery  represented  by  the  surviving  Puritanism 
of  New  England  was  almost  coeval  with  his  in 
terest  in  the  New  England  aristocracy  as  a  caste 
system, — he  had  long  been  convinced  of  the  futil 
ity  of  satiric  castigation  against  anything  so  in 
herent  in  the  social  system ;  and  we  find  nothing  of 
the  superior  attitude  in  his  work  except  the  great 
artist's  natural  superiority  to  his  materials. 
Even  the  irony  commonly  thought  requisite  to  the 
poise  and  control  of  great  conscious  artistry,  he 
had  refined  and  diluted  almost  to  the  amenities  of 
familiar  intercourse. 

To  the  phrase  "identification  with  common  hu 
manity  "  he  has  thus  given  an  extremely  literal 
meaning,  a  sort  of  scriptural  interpretation.  He 
loves  whom  he  chasteneth.  In  a  sense,  Howells 
loves  even  the  Reverend  David  Sewell,  the  most 
unlovely  figure  in  all  his  works,  with  the  exception 
of  Mrs.  Sewell.  Through  that  slough  of  con 
science  and  piety,  The  Minister's  Charge,  he  drags 
him,  with  all  the  soil  of  his  cant,  his  deference  to 
his  wife,  his  tactless  blundering  upon  him,  yet 
full  of  friendliness  to  him,  and  brings  him  at  last 
in  his  great  sermon  very  near  to  his  own  belief 
'  '  that  you  can  have  a  righteous  public  only  by  the 
slow  process  of  having  righteous  men  and 
women. "  He  never  satirizes  a  social  or  a  voca 
tional  class,  with  such  possible  minor  exceptions 
as  hotel  clerks,  who  as  a  race,  one  gathers  from 


114          William  Dean  Howells 

his  novels,  are  given  over  to  insolence  and  effront 
ery.  The  only  human  trait  enduringly  offensive  to 
him  is  "freshness"  in  young  men;  consequently, 
his  heroes  prevailingly  lack  aggressiveness  and 
initiative,  while  his  bad  young  men  are  over- 
supplied  with  these  qualities.  His  tolerance  is 
all  but  universal,  and  his  books  can  not  be  intelli 
gently  read  without  a  secure  grasp  of  this  central 
and  distinguishing  feature. 

A  "  self  -identification ' '  that  has  reacted  much 
to  the  disfavor  of  Howells  as  an  author  is  that 
which  made  him  a  part  of  the  Boston  society  he  so 
amazingly  portrayed.  This  more  than  any  other 
has  sown  the  history  of  Howells  appreciation 
with  amusing  misinterpretations.  It  goes  without 
saying  that  the  Boston  that  read  him  in  the 
eighties  and  made  an  "  issue "  of  him,  pretty 
largely  misread  him.  He  has  himself  told  of  his 
difficulties  in  persuading  Francis  Parkman  that 
the  rise  of  Silas  Lapham  was  not  a  social  one.  In 
fact,  he  never  succeeded  in  persuading  the  great 
historian;  he  lived  the  offense  down.  The  ladies 
of  the  seventies,  according  to  the  solemn  and 
awful  report  of  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson, 
confidently  awaited  a  sequel  to  A  Chance  Ac 
quaintance  that  should  settle  matters  more  ad 
vantageously  to  the  fortunes  of  Mr.  Miles  Arbu- 
ton,  that  most  wonderful  donkey  who  ever  repre 
sented  a  city  or  a  social  caste,  and  reward  him 
with  the  hand  of  pretty  Kitty  Ellison,  whom  he 
had  so  boorishly  treated.  It  is  now  the  vogue  to 
discover  in  the  fact  that  Howells'  creations  were 
at  all  acceptable  to  the  ladies  of  Boston  a  serious 
infirmity  of  spirit,  and  to  hold  it  up  against  him 


His  Literary  Method  115 

almost  as  a  final  judgment  of  his  work  that  he 
appreciated  and  commemorated  those  qualities  of 
"exquisiteness"  and  "respectability"  fostered  by 
that  unofficial  aristocracy  he  knew  so  well.  The 
undoing  of  Howells,  we  are  assured,  was  that  "he 
kowtowed  to  the  stuffy  nabobs  of  Boston/'  that 
in  the  circle  of  Lowell  he  found  an  intellectual 
haven  in  which  the  inquiry  promised  by  his  genius 
was  effectually  stilled.  This  fashion  too  will  dis 
appear  before  a  deeper  comprehension  of  his 
methods  of  "square  dealing."  For,  while  How- 
ells  accorded  his  subjects  a  complete  and  impar 
tial  acceptance,  there  was  ever  in  the  impulse 
behind  his  portraiture  a  feeling  for  the  humanity 
that  was  alien  to  them. 

The  Howells  method,  in  a  word,  represents  the  j 
most  modern  stage  of  pure  artistry,  but  it  does 
not  in  any  wise  answer  the  current  demand  that 
the  novelist  create  new  social  values.  It  is  not 
within  its  scope  to  debate  the  validity  of  moral 
concepts  but  the  relation  of  men  to  them.  Its 
criticism  of  the  social  order  is  conducted  from  \ 
within  instead  of  from  without.  It  measures 
each  society  by  the  best  in  itself,  but  does  not 
permit  any  social  body  to  confer  a  final  judgment 
on  itself.  It  aims  at  the  sympathetic  enlargement 
that  comes  from  understanding  everything  from 
its  own  point  of  view.  The  subtleties  of  such  an 
artistic  intention,  an  intention  as  different  as  pos 
sible  from  that,  let  us  say,  of  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells,  are 
altogether  too  easily  ignored  at  the  present  time, 
especially  when  applied  to  such  social  phenomena 
as  the  aristocracy  of  Boston,  the  plutocracy  of 
New  York,  and  the  native  Puritanism  and  Philis- 


ii6          William  Dean  Howells 

tinism  at  a  variety  of  times  and  places.  It  is 
quite  unfair  to  judge  A  Modern  Instance  or  The 
Rise  of  Silas  Lapham  as  if  they  came  from  the 
pen  of  Mr.  Wells,  to  identify  as  the  author's  in 
competence  to  handle  his  situation  the  natural 
incompetence  of  the  Athertons,  who  represent  the 
social  opinion  of  a  community  and  an  epoch,  to 
solve  the  final  situation  of  A  Modern  Instance,  or 
to  take  the  canting  speculations  of  the  Reverend 
David  Sewell,  who  represents  the  best  religious 
opinion  of  the  same  community  and  epoch,  as  the 
last  word  of  the  author  on  the  ways  of  Providence 
with  Silas  Lapham.  The  purpose  and,  rightly 
considered,  the  effect  of  these  conclusions  is  to 
record  standards,  not  to  conform  to  them  or  to 
sanction  them.  And  this  condition  as  time  goes 
on  cannot  but  work  for  the  permanence  of  these 
I  great  novels. 


HIS    POETRY    AND    TRAVELS 

HO  WELLS'  contribution  to  miscellaneous  lit 
erature,  that  is,  literature  exclusive  of  the 
fiction — novels,  stories,  and  plays — upon  which  his 
reputation  depends,  is  enormous.  For  this  brief 
chapter,  which  is  rather  in  the  nature  of  an  inter 
mezzo,  I  choose  two  forms  that  he  consistently 
cultivated,  the  one  for  which  he  was  strongly  to 
be  suspected  of  having  a  predilection,  and  the  one 
for  which  I  certainly  have.  In  no  other  depart 
ment  of  his  work  do  I  get  so  fine  and  so  complete 
a  sense  of  his  authorship  as  in  these  companion 
able  and  wholly  delectable  volumes  of  Italian, 
Spanish,  and  English  wanderings.  His  poetry, 
on  the  other  hand,  is  a  thing  apart.  This  is  neces 
sarily  so,  since  his  maitresse  qualite  of  whole- 
souled  geniality  is  fatally  absent  from  his  verse. 
But  to  say  that  it  inadequately  represents  him,  is 
to  understate  the  case.  It  represents  better  the 
literosity  of  his  youth  at  which  he  later  poked 
fun.  It  displaces  the  humanity  which  informs 
every  page  of  his  prose  with  an  intensely  personal 
threnody  on  the  sadness  of  the  human  lot. 

The  aspirations  of  his  youth  were  altogether 
toward  poetry.  Of  the  time  (1860)  of  the  memo 
rable  New  England  pilgrimage,  he  writes:  "In 
wardly  I  was  a  poet,  with  no  wish  to  be  anything 

117 


n8          William  Dean  Ho  wells 

else,  unless  in  a  moment  of  careless  affluence  I 
might  so  far  forget  myself  as  to  be  a  novelist.  I 
was,  with  my  friend  J.  J.  Piatt,  the  half -author  of 
a  little  volume  of  very  unknown  verse,  and  Mr. 
Lowell  had  lately  accepted  and  had  begun  to  print 
in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  five  or  six  poems  of  mine. 
Besides  this  I  had  written  poems,  and  sketches, 
and  criticisms  for  the  Saturday  Press  of  New 
York,  a  long-forgotten  but  once  very  lively  ex 
pression  of  literary  intention  in  an  extinct  bohe- 
mia  of  that  city ;  and  I  was  always  writing  poems, 
and  sketches,  and  criticisms  in  our  own  paper.  "x 
The  Poems  of  Two  Friends  (1860)  alluded  to, 
did  not  quite,  as  he  somewhere  else  depreciatingly 
avers,  become  "instantly  and  lastingly  unknown 
to  fame."  Lowell  noticed  the  book  in  the  Atlantic, 
albeit  without  the  enthusiasm  he  came  later  to 
indulge  for  one  of  its  authors.  Nevertheless,  it  is 
now  the  property  of  bibliophiles,  being  the  rarest 
with  one  exception  of  the  Howells  books.  It  has 
a  history  to  delight  collectors.  Lida  R.  McCabe 
is  authority  for  the  statement  that  (1898)  Howells 
himself  did  not  possess  a  copy.2  Its  failure,  how 
ever,  did  not  dishearten  the  young  poet;  he  com 
posed  assiduously  during  his  Venetian  consulate, 
and  assaulted  with  little  success  editorial  offices 
on  both  sides  of  the  water.  After  his  return,  when 
he  became  an  editor  himself,  publication  seems  to 
have  come  more  easily ;  and  in  1869  No  Love  Lost, 
a  Romance  of  Travel,  in  his  favorite  hexameters, 

1  Literary  Friends  and  Acquaintance  (1900),  p.  1. 

2 Lida  E.  McCabe,  "One  Never  Can  Tell,"  in  the  Outlook 
(1898),  59:131.  Niagara  Revisited  is  the  first  of  the  Howells 
books  in  order  of  rarity,  and  the  first  edition  of  Venetian  Life 
conies  third. 


His  Poetry  and  Travels  119 

was  reprinted  from  Putnam's  Magazine  in  the 
form  of  a  little  gift  book.  This  booklet  is  also 
somewhat  rare,  the  copy  I  use  having  been  ac 
quired,  according  to  the  librarian's  annotation  in 
1899,  at  an  expense  of  two  dollars  and  fifty  cents. 
The  work,  however,  survives  in  the  latest  edition 
of  the  Poems.  These  Poems  were  first  collected  in 
1873,  and  have  enjoyed  two  subsequent  editions 
with  slight  alteration  of  contents  (1885  and  1901). 
Two  other  volumes  of  single  authorship  are  de 
voted  to  verse,  Stops  of  Various  Quills  (1895), 
and  The  Mother  and  the  Father;  Dramatic  Pas 
sages  (1909) ;  while  recent  specimens  are  included 
in  the  prose  and  verse  miscellany,  The  Daughter 
of  the  Storage  (1916). 

The  early  productions  are  redolent  of  Heine 
and  Longfellow,  Heine  dominating  those  in  lyric 
mood,  which  frequently  suggest  Longfellow's 
translations  from  the  German.  The  Heinesque 
manner  and  atmosphere  are  tempered  by  the  lin 
gering  pathos  of  the  American  poet,  whose  in 
fluence  is  more  clearly  discernible  in  the  narrative 
numbers.  The  perfection  of  form,  the  compres 
sion,  and  the  poignancy  of  the  Heine  lieder  are 
seldom  attained  in  these  lyrics.  Metrically,  they 
are  surprisingly  uneven,  coming  from  one  so 
ardently  trained  in  the  school  of  Pope.  It  seems 
a  little  odd  that  Lowell  should  strenuously  have 
objected  to  the  coinage  " silvern "  (on  analogy 
with  golden,  leathern,  and  the  like)  in  the  stanza 
which  follows,  and  should  not  have  suggested  a 
more  ingratiating  rhythmical  effect : 

"The  silvern  chords  of  the  piano  trembled 
Still  with  the  music  wrung 


12O          William  Dean  Howells 

From  them;  the  silence  of  the  room  dissembled 
The  closes  of  the  songs  that  she  had  sung." ' 

The  pieces  are  seldom  marred  by  harsh  or  faulty 
lines,  but  as  seldom  rise  to  high  distinction.  In 
some,  such  as  "Pleasure-Pain"  ("Das  Vergnii- 
gen  ist  Nichts  als  ein  hochst  angenehmer 
Schmerz," — Heine),4  the  lyric  mood  and  the  lyric 
measure  sustain  each  other  over  a  considerable 
length. 

Of  the  narrative  poems,  "The  Pilot's  Story, " 
though  by  no  means  the  best,  is  by  far  the  best 
known,  owing  to  the  quite  comprehensible  vogue 
which  it  enjoyed  in  its  day.  It  was  widely  ex 
changed,  sometimes  to  the  youthful  poet's  cha 
grin,  being  printed  as  prose.  Lincoln's  secre 
taries,  Hay  and  Nicolay,  knew  young  Howells  as 
its  author,  not  merely  as  the  author  of  the  Life 
of  Lincoln,  which  was  their  immediate  concern. 
It  recounts  through  the  lips  of  a  Mississippi  pilot 
a  melodramatic  episode  depicting  the  horrors  of 
slavery.  Louise,  a  beautiful  octoroon,  is  gambled 
away  at  monte  to  a  villain  of  long  black  hair  and 
moustaches.  Overwhelmed  by  this  confession 
from  her  weak  master,  who  had  promised  her  her 
freedom  for  the  sake  of  their  little  boy  in  Saint 
Louis,  and  terrified  at  the  approach  of  the  gam 
bler,  she  hurls  herself  from  the  stern  of  the 
steamer  and  is  plowed  under  by  the  wheel. 

The  poem  came  upon  the  mid-century  revival  of 
the  hexameter,  established  in  this  country  by 
Longfellow ;  and  Howells  never  outgrew  the  pen 
chant  he  then  acquired  for  the  meter.  In  the 

'"Forlorn"  in  Poems  (Houghton  Ed.  1901),  p.  13. 
4  Ibid.,  p.  19. 


His  Poetry  and  Travels          121 

descriptive  interlude  and  conclusion,  the  master 
has  his  inning.  The  rhythm  is  not  bad  in  simple 
and  straightforward  passages,  but  the  imagery  is 
far  less  felicitously  conceived  than  is  Longfellow's 
wont.  Critics  who  carp  at  the  tendency  of  Long 
fellow  to  strain  a  simile  will  not  be  pleased  with 
the  metrical  tales  of  Howells.  For  my  part,  I 
have  never  consented  to  hear  maligned  the  bold 
ness  in  simplicity  of  some  of  the  Longfellow  meta 
phors. 

"Silently  one  by  one,  in  the  infinite  meadows  of 

heaven, 

Blossomed  the  lovely  stars,  the  forget-me-nots 
of  the  angels. " 

This  in  "The  Pilot 's  Story,"  however,  lapses 
easily  into  banality: 

"Softly  the  sunset  had  faded,  and  now  on  the 

eastern  horizon 

Hung,  like  a  tear  in  the  sky,  the  beautiful  star 
of  the  evening.  "5 

"Louis  Lebeau's  Conversion/'  "Clement,"  and 
others  of  the  sketches  and  tales  are  saturate  with 
Evangeline.  But  Howells  reinforced  the  impulse 
to  write  hexameters  given  by  Longfellow,  going, 
as  did  Bayard  Taylor,  directly  to  the  eighteenth- 
century  German  popularizers  of  the  measure.  He 
studied  Kingsley's  Andromeda  also,  but  the  in 
fluence  of  this,  the  supreme  English  exemplar,  is 
hardly  to  be  detected  in  his  handling.  The  sketch 
entitled  "The  Movers"  is  reminiscent  of  Her 
mann  und  Dorothea. 

*Poem*  (Houghton  Ed.  1901),  p.  9. 


122          William  Dean  Howells 

"Parting  was  over  at  last,  and  all  the  good-bys  had  been 

spoken. 

Up  the  long  hillside  road  the  white-tented  wagon  moved  slowly, 
Bearing  the  mother  and  children,  while  onward  before  them 

the  father 
Trudged  with  his  gun  on  his  arm,  and  the  faithful  house-dog 

beside  him, 
Grave  and  sedate,  as  if  knowing  the  sorrowful  thoughts  of 

his  master. 

"April  was  in  her  prime,  and  the  day  in  its  dewy  awaking: 
Like  a  great  flower,  afar  on  the  crest  of  the  eastern  woodland, 
Goldenly  bloomed  the  sun,  and  over  the  beautiful  valley, 
Dim  with  its  dew  and  shadow,  and  bright  with  its  dream  of  a 

river, 

Looked  to  the  western  hills,  and  shone  on  the  humble  pro 
cession, 

Paining  with  splendor  the  children's  eyes,  and  the  heart  of 
the  mother." " 

Tennyson,  almost  a  twin-idol  with  Longfellow, 
contributes  somewhat  to  the  versification,  but  his 
effect  is  more  clearly  discernible  in  the  sentiment. 
It  is  when  in  Stops  of  Various  Quills  the  mood  of 
doubt  struggling  with  belief  becomes  a  dominant 
motif,  that  Tennyson  comes  into  his  own.  Our 
poet  was  never  a  Browning  enthusiast;  but  the 
roughness  of  "No  Love  Lost,"  the  poem  curiously 
chosen  for  separate  publication,  savors  more  of 
Browning  than  of  any  other  master  we  have  men 
tioned,  without,  however,  attaining  Browning's 
weight,  virility,  or  choiceness.  I  quote  the  envoy, 
which  is  the  realistic  touch  to  this  very  romantic 
tale ;  but  that  fact  does  not  account  for  the  meter : 

"Well,  I'm  glad,  I  am  sure,  if  Fanny  supposes 

she's  happy. 

IVe  no  doubt  her  lover  is  good  and  noble — as 
men  go. 

•Poems  (Houghton  Ed.  1901),  p.  115. 


His  Poetry  and  Travels          123 

But,  as  regards  his  release  of  a  woman  who'd 

wholly  forgot  him, 
And  whom  he  loved  no  longer,  for  one  whom  he 

loves,  and  who  loves  him, 
7  don't   exactly  see  where   the   heroism  coin- 


When  we  come  to  Stops  of  Various 
(1895),  we  feel  that  the  pessimism,  so  purely  a 
literary  mood  as  it  informs  the  Poems,  is  assum 
ing  the  cast  and  complexion  of  a  philosophy.  And 
it  is  all  pervasive.  Howard  Pyle,  who  illustrates 
the  book  lavishly,  has  expressed  it  perfectly, 
albeit  after  the  German  mythological  manner  of 
the  Boecklin  school.  The  baubles  of  the  mask, 
the  death 's  head,  the  thorns,  and  the  bitter  chalice 
are  its  symbols.  The  fiddler  Death,  or  the  grim 
reaper  with  sickle  and  glass,  stalks  through  its 
pages  while  angels  weep  and  mortals  bid  him  stay. 
Melancholia  is  written  large  over  all.  "The  Be 
wildered  Guest"  is  most  quoted,  a  sonnet,  of  which 
form  the  book  includes  several  specimens. 

"I  was  not  asked  if  I  should  like  to  come. 
I  have  not  seen  my  host  here  since  I  came, 
Or  had  a  word  of  welcome  in  his  name. 
Some  say  that  we  shall  never  see  him,  and  some 
That  we  shall  see  him  elsewhere,  and  then  know 
Why  we  were  bid.     How  long  I  am  to  stay 
I  have  not  the  least  notion.     None,  they  say, 
Was  ever  told  when  he  should  come  or  go. 
But  every  now  and  then  there  bursts  upon 
The  song  and  mirth  a  lamentable  noise, 
A  sound  of  shrieks  and  sobs,  that  strikes  our  joys 
Dumb  in  our  breasts ;  and  then,  some  one  is  gone. 
They  say  we  meet  him.    None  knows  where  or  when. 
We  know  we  shall  not  meet  him  here  again." 8 
''Poems   (Houghton  Ed.  1901),  p.  198. 

9  Stops  of  Various  Quills  (1895),  number  five.     Being  an  art- 
book,  the  work  is  unpaginated. 


124          William  Dean  Howells 

The  number  immediately  preceding  this,  "From 
Generation  to  Generation, "  counsels  the  bright 
throng  of  innocent  spirits  unborn  to  shun  this  evil 
star.  But,  alas,  they  cry  in  chorus : 

"The  doom  is  on  us,  as  it  is  on  you, 
That  nothing  can  undo; 
And  all  in  vain  you  warn: 
As  your  fate  is  to  die,  our  fate  is  to  be  born." 

The  logic  is  hardly  worthy  of  a  Schopenhauer,  for 
our  poet  fears  but  a  changeless  grave;  and  the 
conclusion  of  his  philosophy  as  voiced  in  "What 
Shall  it  Profit,"  number  forty-three,  is  Tenny- 
sonian : 

"If  I  lay  waste  and  wither  up  with  doubt 
The  blessed  fields  of  heaven  where  once  my  faith 
Possessed  itself  serenely  safe  from  death; 
If  I  deny  the  things  past  finding  out; 
Or  if  I  orphan  my  own  soul  of  One 
That  seemed  a  Father,  and  make  void  the  place 
Within  me  where  He  dwelt  in  power  and  grace, 
What  do  I  gain  by  that  I  have  undone?" 

The  depth  and  originality  of  these  verses  will 
blind  one  to  the  fact  that  they  form  even  as  the 
early  and  imitative  ones,  a  private  pleasure 
ground  for  their  author,  a  garden  of  moods.  To 
correlate  them,  as  some  have  done,  with  the  great 
novels  is  to  exaggerate  their  importance.  The 
great  novels  like  A  Hazard  of  New  Fortunes 
indeed  reflect  the  popular  pessimism  of  their  day, 
but  only  in  their  minor  aspects.  In  the  presence 
of  human  scenes,  Howells '  sense  of  the  real  is 
irrepressible ;  and  the  philosophic  infection  is  not 
toxic  in  its  effect.  Stops  of  Various  Quills,  on  the 


His  Poetry  and  Travels          125 

other  hand,  is,  as  he  would  say,  strictly  of  its 
epoch.  As  a  poet  he  was  perfectly  in  the  mode  of 
the  nineties. 

In  craftsmanship,  the  verse  of  Stops  of  Various 
Quills  varies  as  widely  as  that  of  the  Poems,  but 
on  a  superior  level.  "Materials  for  a  Story "  and 
"Labor  and  Capital "  9  are  not  improved  by  rime. 
The  latter  is  a  splendid  "  impression, "  which  a 
French  poet  would  have  put  into  memorable 
prose.  "The  Bewildered  Guest"  just  quoted  and 
the  probably  superior  "If"  (number  thirteen) 
discover  our  poet  at  the  apogee  of  his  art,  and 
will  not  be  passed  over  by  the  anthologists  of  the 
future. 

The  impression  left  by  the  two  remaining  vol 
umes  is  of  retrogression  in  technique.  The  Mother 
and  the  Father;  Dramatic  Passages,  which  is 
arresting  and  altogether  superior  in  content,  real 
izing  the  emotions  of  a  mother  and  a  father  in 
the  presence  of  the  great  facts  of  birth,  marriage, 
and  death,  cries  as  loudly  for  prose  as  did  No 
Love  Lost,  but  is  happier  than  the  Venetian  tale 
in  attaining  a  really  excellent  prose,  so  that  it 
makes  delightful  reading.  On  the  whole,  it  is  less 
metrical  than  Lorna  Doone.  I  cite  almost  at  ran 
dom  a  good  conversational  sentence : 

"Oh  no ;  you  only 

Said  that  you  did  not  know,  and  I  have  only 
Bettered  your  ignorance  a  little  and  said 
I  knew.    Women  must  have  some  faith  or  other 
Even  if  they  make  a  faith  of  disbelief."  10 

9  Stops  of  Various  Quills  (1895),  numbers  thirty  and  thirty-two. 

10  The  Mother  and  the  Father  (1909),  p.  27. 


126          William  Dean  Howells 

The  Daughter  of  the  Storage  (1914),  which 
contains,  among  other  beautiful  pieces  of  prose, 
two  of  the  gem-like  farces  in  which  its  author  is 
quite  unapproachable,  discloses  between  book- 
covers  the  lowest  level  to  which  he  ever  descended 
in  the  matter  of  metrical  form.  Small  wonder 
that  it  should  have  been  heralded  in  I  fail  to 
recall  which  of  the  New  York  Sunday  editions  by 
a  front-page  review  with  portrait,  as  Howells' 
initial  venture  into  vers  libre,  and  as  a  sort  of 
official  approval  conferred  by  literary  authority 
upon  the  free  forms.  Unfortunately,  this  reviewer 
was  mistaken.  There  is  not  an  authentic  piece  of 
vers  libre  in  the  collection.  I  say  this,  however, 
with  a  confidence  which  I  do  not  feel  in  ascribing 
specific  metrical  intentions  to  individual  poems. 
I  can  maintain  only  to  be  personally  persuaded 
that  "Captain  Dunlevy's  Last  Trip"  is  in  no 
other  meter  than  our  old  favorite  hexameter ;  and 
Southey  never  did  worse  by  it. 

"It  was  against  the  law,  in  such  case  made  and 
provided, 

Of  the  United  States,  but  by  the  good  will  of  the 
pilots 

That  we  would  some  of  us  climb  to  the  pilot 
house  after  our  breakfast 

For  a  morning  smoke,  and  find  ourselves  seats 
on  the  benching. "  lx 

"The  Face  at  the  Window " 12  shows  clearly  a 
return  to  its  author 's  first  love,  the  heroic  couplet : 

uThe  Daughter  of  the  Storage  (1914),  p.  67. 
"Ibid.,  p.  107. 


His  Poetry  and  Travels          127 

"He  had  gone  down  at  Christmas,  where  our  host 
Had  opened  up  his  house  on  the  Maine  coast 
For  the  week's  holidays,  and  we  were  all, 
On  Christmas  night,  sitting  in  the  great  hall." 

A  diary  recently  recovered  in  a  storage  ware 
house  and  used  by  Howells  in  the  composition  of 
Years  of  My  Youth  furnished  an  interesting  speci 
men  of  the  early  Popeian  imitations.  "I  have  no 
facts  to  support  my  conjecture/'  he  remarks  in 
submitting  it,  "but  I  will  hazard  the  belief  that 
the  winter  of  1851-2  was  largely  given  to  pro 
ducing  and  polishing  this  plaster-of-paris  master 
piece/'  He  forbears  mockery  out  of  reverence 
for  the  boy  who  long  ago  strove  so  fervently  to 
realize  an  ideal,  albeit  an  ideal  which  the  man 
branded  as  false.  However,  I  will  go  into  court 
and  say  in  defence  of  the  same  boy  that  his  pas 
toral,  imitative  though  it  be,  makes  better  reading 
than  "The  Face  at  the  Window."  One  does  not 
have  to  lower  one's  evaluation  of  the  informing 
ideal  one  jot  in  saying  that  in  the  presence  of  so 
abysmal  a  technical  falling  off  it  must  content 
itself  with  second  place.  I  can  scarce  forbear 
repeating  all  we  have  of  the  pastoral,  which  con 
cerns  one  Corydon,  in  evidence  of  this.  I  give, 
however,  only  young  Corydon 's  first  round  at  the 
song ;  his  competitors,  unhappily,  do  not  appear : 

"Now  ceases  Philomel  her  nightly  strain, 
And  trembling  stars  forsake  the  ethereal  plain; 
Pale  Luna  fades  and  down  the  distant  West 
Sadly  and  slowly  lowers  her  rayless  crest; 
But  yellow  Phoebus  pours  his  beams  along 
And  linnets  sport  where  Philomela  sung. 
Here  robins  chirp  and  joyful  orioles  sing 
Where  late  the  owlet  flapped  his  noiseless  wing; 


128          William  Dean  Howells 

Here  the  pale  lily  spreads  its  petals  wide, 
And  snowy  daisies  deck  the  green  hillside; 
Here  violets'  bloom  with  waterflowers  wreath, 
And  forest  blossoms  scent  the  Zephyr's  breath. 
Fit  spot  for  song  where  Spring  in  every  flower 
Rich  incense  offers  to  the  morning  hour. 
Then  let  us  sing!     The  hour  is  meet  for  love, 
The  plain,  the  vale,  the  music-breathing  grove; 
Let  gentle  Daphnis  judge  the  doubtful  song, 
And  soft  ^Eolus  bear  the  notes  along. 
I  stake  my  pipe  with  whose  soft  notes  I  while 
The  tedious  hours,  and  my  toil  beguile; 
Whose  mellow  voice  gives  joy  serener  charms, 
And  grief  of  half  its  bitterness  disarms."  " 

In  taking  leave  of  the  poetry  and  turning  to  the 
books  of  travel,  we  approach  something  incon 
ceivably  different,  something  that  those  who 
would  make  much  of  Howells7  pessimism  should 
omit  from  the  count.  Beggars,  indeed,  touch  his 
sensibilities  keenly,  but  one  must  go  to  the  socio 
logical  essays  to  prove  that  they  becloud  his 
Weltanschauung.  Each  record  of  his  wanderings 
pays  fresh  tribute  to  the  youth  and  vitality  that 
were  ever  associated  with  him.  I  complained  that 
his  poetry  does  not  fairly  represent  him,  and  that 
its  technical  deficiencies  sometimes  prohibit  en 
joyment.  In  both  respects  the  travels  are  antip 
odal.  His  ingratiating  prose  is  here  to  be  enjoyed 
at  its  best,  its  very  best ;  and,  so  far  from  consti 
tuting,  so  to  speak,  a  private  department  of  his 
work,  these  volumes  are  all  of  a  piece  with  it.  A 
persistence  of  the  early  and  unnative  literary 
ideal  seems  to  have  vitiated  his  poetry,  while  in 
the  sketches  of  travel  he  developed  the  native  and 
sterling  qualities  that  characterized  his  fiction.  It 

"Years  of  My  Youth  (1916),  pp.  76-77. 


His  Poetry  and  Travels          129 

is  a  significant  fact  that  the  fiction  had  its  genesis 
in  these  sketches  of  travel,  the  first  novel,  Their 
Wedding  Journey,  being  nothing  more  nor  less 
than  a  magnified  sketch.  The  reason  is  not  ob 
scure,  since  a  special  province  of  his  lies  in  the 
depiction  of  manners,  and  in  the  handling  of  the 
lighter  revelations  of  character,  or,  as  the  inju 
dicious  will  have  it,  the  depiction  of  externals  and 
the  handling  of  superficial  aspects. 

In  these  sketches,  begun  with  a  journalistic  in 
tent,  he  achieved  a  contact  with  reality  which  his 
more  "literary"  verse  was  incapable  of  affording. 
This  he  did  not  see  very  clearly,  so  firmly  had 
been  ingrained  the  notion  that  poetry  was  the 
occupation  for  a  literary  man.  His  earliest  read 
ing  and  writing  had  been  poetry ;  the  first  literary 
heroes  he  met  in  the  flesh  were  poets,  men  like 
Bayard  Taylor, — the  very  first, — Lowell,  and 
Longfellow.  Indeed,  when  he  joined  the  circle 
of  the  New  England  elect,  he  found  the  type  of 
literary  man  to  be  the  poet.  Difficult,  therefore, 
as  it  may  be  to  understand  why  he  was  born  for 
mediocrity  in  versification,  it  is  not  at  all  difficult 
to  understand  why  he  should  so  long  have  failed 
to  recognize  in  himself  the  consummate  prosateur 
that  he  was.  Lowell  felt  this  better  than  he.  The 
phenomenon  is  repeated  in  his  hesitancy  in  mak 
ing  the  transition  from  the  simpler  style  of  prose 
narrative  displayed  in  these  chronicles  to  the 
more  highly  organized  type  represented  by  the 
novels. 

I  cannot  say  that  these  writings  will  ever  add 
greatly  to  his  reputation.  He  who  would  hazard 
such  a  prediction  should  first  ask  to  see  what 


130          William  Dean  Howells 

records  of  actual  travel  have  resisted  the  tooth  of 
time.  What  has  put  a  blight  upon  this  charming 
genre,  so  that  its  choicest  specimen  will  perish 
before  the  time  of  a  second-rate  novel  or  a  voyage 
imaginaire?  The  sufficient  fact  is,  I  suppose,  as 
Howells  realized  when  he  did  make  the  transition 
to  fiction,  that  the  great  and  permanent  interest  of 
mankind  is  in  man,  in  the  study  of  human  charac 
ter;  and  in  dealing  solely  with  the  actual  the 
author  is  handicapped  in  this  study,  the  real  in 
the  novelist 's  sense  having  nothing  to  do  with  the 
actual.  He  once  told  us  how  he  abandoned  a  great 
subject  because  its  facts  interfered  with  the  fic 
tional  mask,  without  which,  he  asserted,  one  can 
not  give  "the  living  complexion  of  events/' 

The  letters  which  became  Venetian  Life  ap 
peared  first  in  the  Boston  Advertiser,  having  been 
vainly  offered  "to  more  aesthetic  periodicals, ' ' 14 
and  at  once  enlisted  the  admiration  of  Howells ' 
diplomatic  chief,  John  Lothrop  Motley,  the  his 
torian,  and  of  Lowell,  who  wrote:  "They  make 
the  most  careful  and  picturesque  study  I  have 
ever  seen  on  any  part  of  Italy.  They  are  the 
thing  itself/'15  There  could  certainly  be  no 
higher  praise  than  this,  considering  the  plethoric 
literature  about  Italy,  especially  Venice,  quanti 
ties  of  which  must  have  been  known  to  the  Ital- 
ianate  Lowell.  The  publication  of  these  letters  in 
book  form  (1866)  laid  the  foundation  for  Howells' 
literary  success,  and  so  frequently  is  misunder 
standing  displayed  concerning  the  facts  of  that 

14 Literary  Friends  and  Acquaintance  (1900),  p.  92. 
"Quoted    from   " Lowell   and    Howells,"   in   Harper's   Weekly 
(1902),  46:101. 


His  Poetry  and  Travels          131 

transaction  that  I  am  going  to  give  the  account  in 
his  own  words. 

"Before  I  left  Venice  I  had  made  my  sketches 
into  a  book,  which  I  sent  on  to  Messrs.  Triibner 
&  Co.,  in  London.  They  had  consented  to  look  at 
it  to  oblige  my  friend  Conway,  who  during  his 
sojourn  with  us  in  Venice,  before  his  settlement  in 
London,  had  been  forced  to  listen  to  some  of  it. 
They  answered  me  in  due  time  that  they  would 
publish  an  edition  of  a  thousand,  at  half  profits, 
if  I  could  get  some  American  house  to  take  five 
hundred  copies.  When  I  stopped  in  London  I 
had  so  little  hope  of  being  able  to  do  this  that  I 
asked  the  Triibners  if  I  might,  without  losing 
their  offer,  try  to  get  some  other  London  house  to 
publish  my  book.  They  said  Yes,  almost  joy 
ously;  and  I  began  to  take  my  manuscript  about. 
At  most  places  they  would  not  look  at  me  or  it,  and 
they  nowhere  consented  to  read  it.  The  house 
promptest  in  refusing  to  consider  it  afterwards 
pirated  one  of  my  novels,  and  with  some  expres 
sions  of  good  intention  in  that  direction,  never 
paid  me  anything  for  it ;  though  I  believe  the  Eng 
lish  still  think  that  this  sort  of  behavior  was  pe 
culiar  to  the  American  publisher  in  the  old  bucca 
neering  times.  I  was  glad  to  go  back  to  the 
Triibners  with  my  book,  and  on  my  way  across  the 
Atlantic  I  met  a  publisher  who  finally  agreed  to 
take  those  five  hundred  copies.  This  was  Mr. 
M.  M.  Hurd,  of  Hurd  and  Houghton,  a  house  then 
newly  established  in  New  York  and  Cambridge. 
We  played  ring-toss  and  shuffleboard  together, 
and  became  of  a  friendship  which  lasts  to  this  day. 
But  it  was  not  till  some  months  later,  when  I  saw 
him  in  New  York,  that  he  consented  to  publish  my 
book.  I  remember  how  he  said,  with  an  air  of 


132          William  Dean  Ho  wells 

vague  misgiving,  and  an  effect  of  trying  to  justify 
himself  in  an  imprudence,  that  it  was  not  a  great 
matter  anyway.  I  perceived  that  he  had  no  faith 
in  it,  and  to  tell  the  truth  I  had  not  much  myself. 
But  the  book  had  an  instant  success,  and  it  has 
gone  on  from  edition  to  edition  ever  since.  There 
was  just  then  the  interest  of  a  not  wholly  gener 
ous  surprise  at  American  things  among  the  Eng 
lish.  Our  success  in  putting  down  the  great  Con 
federate  rebellion  had  caught  the  fancy  of  our 
cousins,  and  I  think  it  was  to  this  mood  of  theirs 
that  I  owed  largely  the  kindness  they  showed  my 
book.  There  were  long  and  cordial  reviews  in  all 
the  great  London  journals,  which  I  used  to  carry 
about  with  me  like  love-letters;  when  I  tried  to 
show  them  to  other  people,  I  could  not  understand 
their  coldness  concerning  them."16 

The  following  year  (1867)  Hurd  followed  up 
the  success  of  Venetian  Life  with  Italian  Jour 
neys,  some  half  dozen  papers  of  which  had  ap 
peared  in  the  Nation  after  being  returned  un- 
printed  by  the  Advertiser — unaesthetic  journal 
too!  The  long  and  scholarly  article  on  " Ducal 
Mantua"  is  from  the  North  American  Review  for 
January,  1866.  The  next  bona  fide  travel  book, 
Tuscan  Cities  (1886),  is  a  worthy  sequel  to  Italian 
Journeys.  In  1892  Messrs.  Harper  added  to  their 
" Black  and  White"  series  A  Little  Swiss  So 
journ,  in  the  Canton  Vaud,  at  Montreux,  Vevay 
and  Villeneuve.  Beginning  with  London  Films 
(1905),  a  book  that  leaves  one  with  lasting  regret 
that  Howells  did  not  find  Paris  a  field  for  his 
"mental  kodak,"  they  come  apace:  Certain 

w Literary  Friends  and  Acquaintance  (1900),  p.  101. 


His  Poetry  and  Travels          133 

Delightful  English  Towns;  with  Glimpses  of  the 
Pleasant  Country  Between  (1906),  Roman  Holi 
days,  and  Others  (1908),  Seven  English  Cities 
(1909),  and  Familiar  Spanish  Travels  (1913)— to 
which  must  be  added  The  Seen  and  Unseen  at 
Stratford-on-Avon;  a  Fantasy  (1914),  although 
the  delight  of  that  book  lies  in  its  fantastic  satire 
on  the  Baconian  authorship  theory,  and  Hither 
and  Thither  in  Germany  (1920),  although  the 
material  of  that  book  had  already  done  service  in 
Their  Silver  Wedding  Journey. 

It  is  alleged  by  those  who  find  Howells  a  ro 
mancer  who  repressed  his  natural  proclivities  in 
order  to  be  "in  the  movement,"  that  the  earliest 
volume,  Venetian  Life,  is  suffused  with  a  certain 
"glow"  which  is  lacking  in  the  later  ones.  Mr. 
Pattee  makes  something  of  the  point,17  and 
Howells  himself,  I  believe,  let  fall  a  few  remarks 
to  color  the  charge.  Now,  the  detection  of  this 
aura  is  in  all  probability  a  matter  too  impression 
istic  in  character  to  be  made  the  subject  of  con 
troversy.  It  may  well  be  that  my  organ  for  per 
ceiving  it  has  undergone  sclerosis.  I  can  only  say, 
therefore,  that  I  am  able  to  detect  no  quality  in 
Venetian  Life  that  does  not  abound  in  the  suc 
ceeding  works.  There  is  as  much  exotic  color  in 
Familiar  Spanish  Travels,  and  what  that  book 
may  lack  in  exuberant  spirits  is  amply  made  up  in 
Certain  Delightful  English  Towns.  The  wonder 
is,  in  very  fact,  how  any  traveler,  whatever  his 
aesthetic  persuasion,  could  have  maintained  such 
joy  in  the  foreign  scene. 

"A   History  of  American  Literature  Since  1870   (1915),  pp. 
197-219. 


134          William  Dean  Howells 

Moreover,  Venetian  Life  is  a  document  as  rich 
as  any  other  in  disillusion.  If  the  "glow"  is 
conceived  to  consist  in  an  abrogation  of  the 
Heinesque  trick  of  disillusionment  (I  reiterate,  I 
do  not  know  in  what  it  is  supposed  to  consist),  the 
early  work  has  small  claim  indeed  to  its  posses 
sion;  for  this  trick  is  essentially  a  mannerism  of 
youth  which  becomes  presently  more  discreet.  To 
observe  it  at  its  baldest,  one  must  see  the  letters 
written  to  the  Cincinnati  Gazette,  which  preceded 
the  Venetian  letters;  and  when  we  come  to  the 
very  late  English  books  it  is  tempered  by  a  notice 
able  infusion  of  Washington  Irving.  It  may  con 
fidently  be  called  a  mannerism,  for  our  author's 
resemblances  to  Heine  are  in  reality  exceedingly 
superficial.  He  cannot  hate ;  at  any  rate  he  cannot 
bite  swiftly  and  keenly ;  but  more  than  all  else,  he 
lacks  Heine's  power  of  sustained  emotion.  He 
has,  in  fact,  a  more  natural  affinity  in  Daudet ;  for 
often  when  he  is  most  critical  he  is  most  truly 
simpatico.  But  the  mood,  such  as  it  is,  is  charac 
teristic  of  all  the  travel  books.  He  has  never 
ceased  to  be  amusingly  critical  of  the  emotions  of 
himself  and  of  others.  In  Venetian  Life  we  have 
as  little  moonshine  as  anywhere  else,  an  even  more 
deliberate  hand  than  usual  being  brought  to  the 
demolition  of  the  romantic  Italy  of  Byron. 

Howells  seldom  passes  up  an  opportunity  for  a 
jibe  at  the  noble  lord.  He  has  been  ungenerous 
enough  to  attempt  a  blot  at  the  splendor  of  the 
bard's  reputation  as  a  swimmer.  Childe  Harold 
appears  to  be  his  vade  mecum  of  what  not  to  feel 
in  Italy.  The  lament 


His  Poetry  and  Travels          135 

"In  Venice  Tasso's  echoes  are  no  more, 
And  silent  rows  the  songless  gondolier" 

is  clearly  the  inspiration  of  the  following  bit  of 
archery,  in  which  he  draws  a  bow  as  long  as  does 
the  sentimental  pilgrim: 

"As  for  the  singing  of  the  gondoliers,  they  are 
the  only  class  of  Venetians  who  have  not  good 
voices,  and  I  am  scarcely  inclined  to  regret  the 
silence  which  long  ago  fell  upon  them.  I  am  quite 
satisfied  with  the  peculiar  note  of  warning  which 
they  utter  as  they  approach  the  corner  of  a  canal, 
and  which  meaning  simply,  '  To  the  Eight, '  or  i  To 
the  Left/  is  the  most  pathetic  and  melancholy 
sound  in  the  world.  If,  putting  aside  my  own 
comfort,  I  have  sometimes  wished  for  the  sake  of 
a  dear,  sentimental  old  friend  at  home,  who  loves 
such  idle  illusions  with  an  ardor  unbecoming  his 
years,  that  I  might  hear  the  voice 

'of  Adrians  gondolier, 
By  distance  mellowed,  o  'er  the  waters  sweep, ' 

I  must  still  confess  that  I  never  did  hear  it  under 
similar  circumstances,  except  in  conversation 
across  half  a  mile  of  lagoon,  when,  as  usual,  the 
burden  of  the  lay  was  polenta  or  soldi. " 18 

Sometimes  rudely  and  sometimes  tenderly  the 
cherished  illusions  are  laid  to  rest.  The  rudeness 
of  the  sentimental  pilgrimage  to  the  "Prigione  di 
Tasso"  in  Ferrara,  "the  coal-cellar  in  which  was 
never  imprisoned  the  poet  whose  works  I  had  not 

w  Venetian  Life  (ed.  1896),  p.  337. 


136          William  Dean  Howells 

read, ' ' 19  is  in  part  owing  to  the  fact  that  it  con 
cerns  one  of  the  dungeons  where  the  noble  bard 
had  himself  locked  up.  This  is  recounted  in  the 
Italian  Journeys,  on  the  whole  a  more  enjoyable 
book  than  Venetian  Life.  The  humor  is  airier.  I 
should  not  know  where  to  match  the  lugubrious 
voyage  from  Genoa  to  Naples,  on  which  they  en 
vied  "the  bones  of  the  Venetians,  Pisans,  and 
Genoese  who  met  and  slew  each  other  in  the  long- 
forgotten  sea-fights,  and  sank  too  deeply  through 
the  waves  to  be  stirred  by  their  restless 
tumult, "  20  unless  it  would  be  in  Daudet,  with  the 
doleful  crossing  of  Tartarin  of  Tarascon,  when 
that  dauntless  hunter  set  out  to  depopulate  Africa 
of  lions. 

As  a  painter  of  sky  and  sea,  Howells  is  not 
inimitable.  The  magic  canvas  of  Pierre  Loti  is 
not  for  him;  and  the  chromatics  of  Gautier  are 
beyond  the  resources  of  his  palette.  He  seldom 
evokes  an  atmosphere  with  the  swift  saliency  of 
De  Maupassant,  or  lingers  in  the  descriptive  mood 
with  the  loving  eye  of  a  plastic  artist  as  does 
Henry  James,  who  learned  the  secrets  of  light 
from  the  impressionistic  painters.  He  attains  an 
idyllic  touch  in  the  English  books,  but  the  chief 
charm  of  his  work  resides  in  the  vivid  sense  of 
reality  which  accrues  from  the  cinematographic 
succession  of  images.  "I  try  to  give  the  reader," 
he  confesses  in  Tuscan  Cities,  "a  true  impression 
of  the  sweet  confusion  of  travel  in  those  old 
lands."21  And  this  book  displays  more  clearly 

"Italian  Journeys  (ed.  1896),  p.  14. 

*>  Ibid.,  p.  69. 

«  Tuscan  Cities  (ed.  1894),  p.  222. 


His  Poetry  and  Travels          137 

than  any  other  perhaps  his  deftness  in  catching 
the  fleeting  bit  of  life  or  scene,  so  pregnant,  and 
so  elusive :  a  cab-driver,  a  vender  with  his  tray  of 
Chianti  flasks,  a  weather-beaten  fragment  of  stat 
uary,  a  group  of  cypresses,  or  an  anemone  blow 
ing  in  the  March  wind.  The  episodic  dramas  of 
the  street  attract  him  mightily,  out  of  all  propor 
tion,  some  will  say,  to  their  significance ;  and  he  is 
superbly  happy  in  depicting  the  color  and  move 
ment  of  crowds. 

Some  will  be  disappointed  that  Howells  is  so 
little  a  technician  in  the  other  arts  than  his  own. 
But  we  surely  suffer  no  dearth  of  technical  writ 
ing  on  Italian  painting,  and  should  be  properly 
grateful  that  Howells  has  been  true  to  himself  in 
refraining  from  any  kind  of  ready-made  apprecia 
tion.  On  this  point,  Maurice  Hewlett  is  in  accord, 
the  burden  of  whose  preambulatory  remarks  to 
The  Road  in  Tuscany  is:  "Let  cooks  take  de 
light  in  the  mixing  of  dishes,  but  let  gentlemen  eat 
of  them."  As  for  describing  architecture,  How 
ells  holds  it  a  sin,  if  not  a  bore.  On  the  other 
hand,  he  is  an  authority  on  the  fine  art  of  mendi 
cancy  in  its  protean  forms,  and  a  connoisseur  in 
birds  and  flowers.  Yet  in  regard  to  the  scenic 
properties  of  architecture,  I  am  going  to  say  that 
his  lively  appreciation  is  fertile  not  only  in  con 
ceiving  just  characterizations,  as  often  as  not  in 
the  form  of  droll  personifications,  but  in  indi 
cating  points  of  view  that  have  escaped  more 
sophisticated  observers. 

The  all-pervading  characteristic  of  his  descrip 
tive  method  is  his  inability  to  keep  the  human 
element  out  of  the  landscape  for  even  a  paragraph 


138          William  Dean  Ho  wells 

of  moderate  length.  Of  course,  scene-painting  as 
we  come  upon  it  in  Radcliffe,  Scott,  and  Cooper, 
is  a  lost  art,  but  Henry  James  and  Mrs.  Edith 
Wharton,  not  to  mention  Mr.  Kipling  and  Mr. 
Conrad,  do  enthrall  the  reader  in  his  own  emo 
tions,  making  him  directly  the  spectator.  Howells 
interestingly  makes  one  of  his  characters  express 
a  skepticism  of  this  procedure  so  far  as  the  drama 
is  concerned;  but  the  passage  is  more  interesting 
in  its  applicability  not  only  to  his  own  novels  but 
even  to  these  books  of  travel.  It  occurs  in  The 
Story  of  a  Play,  as  Maxwell  the  playwright  and 
his  Louise  sit  swinging  on  their  cottage  veranda : 

".  .  .  The  sea  came  and  went  among  the  rocks 
below,  marking  its  course  in  the  deepening  twi 
light  with  a  white  rope  of  foam,  and  raving  hus 
kily  to  itself,  with  now  and  then  the  long  plunge  of 
some  heavier  surge  against  the  bowlders,  and  a 
hoarse  shout.  The  Portland  boat  swam  by  in  the 
offing,  a  glitter  of  irregular  lights,  and  the  lamps 
on  the  different  points  of  the  Cape  blinked  as  they 
revolved  in  their  towers.  'This  is  the  kind  of 
thing  you  can  get  only  in  a  novel/  said  Maxwell, 
musingly.  'You  couldn't  possibly  give  the  feel 
ing  of  it  in  a  play. ' 

"  'Couldn't  you  give  the  feeling  of  the  people 
looking  at  it! '  suggested  his  wife,  and  she  put  out 
her  hand  to  lay  it  on  his.  'Yes,  you  could  do  that/ 
he  assented,  with  pleasure  in  her  notion ; '  and  that 
would  be  better.  I  suppose  that  is  what  would  be 
aimed  at  in  a  description  of  the  scene,  which 
would  be  tiresome  if  it  didn't  give  the  feeling  of 
the  spectator.' 

"The  Story  of  a  Play  (1898),  p.  29 


His  Poetry  and  Travels          139 

It  is  the  feeling  of  the  spectator  in  the  play 
wright's  sense  that  is  seldom  wanting  in  How- 
ells'  scene.  People  are  an  obsession  with  him; 
when  they  are  long  absent,  he  goes  into  the  by 
ways  and  hedges  and  compels  them  to  come  in. 
Or  if  he  forsakes  the  midday  throng  to  view  a 
city  in  the  silence  of  night,  he  steals  back  almost 
before  one  is  aware.  This  is  what  he  does  at 
Carlsbad  in  Their  Silver  Wedding  Journey,  but  I 
prefer  to  give  an  example  from  Venetian  Life: 

".  .  .  I  remember  distinctly  among  the  beauti 
ful  nights  of  that  time,  the  soft  night  of  late  win 
ter  which  first  showed  me  the  scene  you  may  be 
hold  from  the  Public  Gardens  at  the  end  of  the 
long  concave  line  of  the  Eiva  degli  Schiavoni. 
Lounging  there  upon  the  southern  parapet  of  the 
Gardens,  I  turned  from  the  dim  bell-towers  of  the 
evanescent  islands  in  the  east  (a  solitary  gondola 
gliding  across  the  calm  of  the  water,  and  striking 
its  moonlight  silver  into  multitudinous  ripples), 
and  glanced  athwart  the  vague  shipping  in  the 
basin  of  St.  Mark,  and  saw  all  the  lights  from  the 
Piazzetta  to  the  Giudecca,  making  a  crescent  of 
flame  in  the  air,  and  casting  deep  into  the  water 
under  them  a  crimson  glory  that  sank  also  down 
and  down  in  my  own  heart,  and  illumined  all  its 
memories  of  beauty  and  delight.  Behind  these 
lamps  rose  the  shadowy  masses  of  church  and 
palace;  the  moon  stood  bright  and  full  in  the 
heavens,  the  gondola  drifted  away  to  the  north 
ward;  the  islands  of  the  lagoons  seemed  to  rise 
and  sink  with  the  light  palpitations  of  the  waves 
like  pictures  on  the  undulating  fields  of  banners; 
the  stark  rigging  of  a  ship  showed  black  against 
the  sky ;  the  Lido  sank  from  sight  upon  the  east, 


140          William  Dean  Howells 

as  if  the  shore  had  composed  itself  to  sleep  by  the 
side  of  its  beloved  sea  to  the  music  of  the  surge 
that  gently  beat  its  sands ;  the  yet  leafless  boughs 
of  the  trees  above  me  stirred  themselves  together, 
and  out  of  one  of  those  trembling  towers  in  the 
lagoons,  one  rich,  full  sob  burst  from  the  heart 
of  a  bell,  too  deeply  stricken  with  the  glory  of  the 
scene,  and  suffused  the  languid  night  with  the 
murmur  of  luxurious,  ineffable  sadness. 

"But  there  is  a  perfect  democracy  in  the  realm 
of  the  beautiful,  and  whatsoever  pleases  is  equal 
to  any  other  thing  there,  no  matter  how  low  its 
origin  or  humble  its  composition ;  and  the  magnifi 
cence  of  that  moonlight  scene  gave  me  no  deeper 
joy  than  I  won  from  the  fine  spectacle  of  an  old 
man  whom  I  saw  burning  coffee  one  night  in  the 
little  court  behind  my  lodgings,  and  whom  I  recol 
lect  now  as  one  of  the  most  interesting  people  I 
saw  in  my  first  days  at  Venice.  All  day  long  the 
air  of  that  neighborhood  had  reeked  with  the 
odors  of  the  fragrant  berry,  and  all  day  long  this 
patient  old  man — sage,  let  me  call  him — had 
turned  the  sheet-iron  cylinder  in  which  it  was 
roasting  over  an  open  fire  after  the  picturesque 
fashion  of  roasting  coffee  in  Venice.  Now  that 
the  night  had  fallen,  and  the  stars  shone  down 
upon  him,  and  the  red  of  the  flame  luridly  illu 
mined  him,  he  showed  more  grand  and  venerable 
than  ever.  Simple,  abstract  humanity  has  its  own 
grandeur  in  Italy ;  and  it  is  not  hard  here  for  the 
artist  to  find  the  primitive  types  with  which 
genius  loves  best  to  deal.  As  for  this  old  man,  he 
had  the  beard  of  a  saint,  and  the  dignity  of  a  sen 
ator,  harmonized  with  the  squalor  of  a  beggar, 
superior  to  which  shone  his  abstract,  unconscious 
grandeur  of  humanity.  A  vast  and  calm  melan 
choly,  which  had  nothing  to  do  with  burning  cof- 


His  Poetry  and  Travels          141 

fee,  dwelt  in  his  aspect  and  attitude ;  and  if  he  had 
been  some  dread  supernatural  agency,  turning  the 
wheel  of  fortune,  and  doing  men,  instead  of  coffee, 
brown,  he  could  not  have  looked  more  sadly  and 
weirdly  impressive.  When,  presently,  he  rose 
from  his  seat,  and  lifted  the  cylinder  from  its 
place,  and  the  clinging  flames  leaped  after  it,  and 
he  shook  it,  and  a  volume  of  luminous  smoke  en 
veloped  him  and  glorified  him — then  I  felt  with 
secret  anguish  that  he  was  beyond  art,  and  turned 
sadly  from  the  spectacle  of  that  sublime  and  hope 
less  magnificence. ' ' 23 

I  have  presented  these  companion  pieces  of  a 
night  in  Venice  that  the  reader  may  judge  for 
himself  which  challenges  its  author's  art.  The 
first  is  immeasurably  the  less  characteristic,  and 
even  for  its  early  period  in  his  development  has 
the  nature  of  an  indulgence.  And  this  brings  me 
to  say,  with  regret,  that  Howells  was  so  afraid  of 
scene-painting  that  in  Their  Silver  Wedding 
Journey,  a  work  largely  devoted  to  scenes,  he 
apologized  for  a  sunrise.24  One  recalls  Balzac's 
admiration  for  The  Pathfinder;  but  the  question 
does  not  concern  realism.  It  is  an  indubitable 
fact  that  the  sun  does  sometimes  rise  in  majesty. 
Nor  must  one  love  Man  the  less  to  insist  that 
sometimes 

" There  is  society  where  none  intrudes.'* 

A  trifle  less  humanity  on  Howells'  part  would 
have  dispensed  with  the  intrusion  of  the  sexton's 
son  at  the  graves  of  Shelley  and  Keats ; 25  a  little 

"  Venetian  Life  (1896),  pp.  33ff. 

"Their  Silver  Wedding  Journey  (1899),  p.  481. 

"Italian  Journeys,  pp.  166-8. 


142          William  Dean  Howells 

less  interest  in  the  pilgrims  at  San  Sebastiano 
and  he  would  have  breathed  the  true  atmosphere 
of  that  shrine.  The  pilgrims  are  ubiquitous,  but 
San  Sebastiano  is  unique.  It  would  be  only  fair, 
however,  to  match  these  two  relative  failures 
with  places  by  two  hundred  triumphant  successes 
with  people.  The  elderly  man  who  gave  our  trav 
elers  their  information  concerning  "Cromwell's 
castle"  is  certainly  such  a  success,  but  the  person 
I  would  have  no  one  miss  is  the  lady  knitting  who 
shared  their  compartment  from  Plymouth  to  Bris 
tol — both  acquaintanceships  recorded  in  the  ever- 
delightful  English  Towns.  I  can  think  of  nothing 
better  than  the  visit  to  Petrarch's  house  at  Arqua 
for  a  fine  subordination  of  the  transient  human 
element  to  its  proper  function  of  enlivening  a 
scene  of  integral  permanent  aspects.26 

I  am  loath  to  leave  these  charming  books,  but 
my  chapter  has  already  violated  its  promised 
character  of  an  intermezzo.  The  reader  may  recall 
my  prefatory  distinction  that  stylistically  consid 
ered  the  two  forms  which  it  has  treated  are  posi 
tively  antipodal.  And  since  the  travels  represent 
our  author  at  the  apogee  of  his  verbal  art,  I  can 
not  conclude  without  a  word  on  the  lavishly  eulo 
gized  Howells  style. 

Of  tributes  to  this  graceful  and  musical  style 
there  is  no  end.  Even  those  who  deny  its  pos 
sessor  ideas  are  ready  to  promise  him  immortality 
because  of  it.  But  now,  all  that  it  is  possible  to 
say  in  praise  of  it  has  been  finally  phrased  by 
Mark  Twain,  whose  essay  on  Howells,  almost 

"Italian  Journeys,  PP-  216ff. 


His  Poetry  and  Travels          143 

entirely  devoted  to  manner,  is  far  and  away  the 
best  thing  we  have  on  the  subject.  His  analysis 
of  the  Howells  humor  is  something  in  which  he 
speaks  with  authority. 

"As  concerns  his  humor,  I  will  not  try  to  say 
anything,  yet  I  would  try  if  I  had  the  words  that 
might  approximately  reach  up  to  its  high  place. 
I  do  not  think  any  one  else  can  play  with  humor 
ous  fancies  so  gracefully  and  delicately  and  deli- 
ciously  as  he  does,  nor  has  so  many  to  play  with, 
nor  can  come  so  near  making  them  look  as  if  they 
were  doing  the  playing  themselves  and  he  was  not 
aware  that  they  were  at  it.  For  they  are  unob 
trusive,  and  quiet  in  their  ways,  and  well  con 
ducted.  His  is  a  humor  which  flows  softly  all 
around  about  and  over  and  through  the  mesh  of 
the  page,  pervasive,  refreshing,  health-giving,  and 
makes  no  more  show  and  no  more  noise  than  does 
the  circulation  of  the  blood. "  27 

He  has  nothing  but  praise  for  the  easy-flowing 
rhythms  which  vex  Mrs.  Atherton,28  not  realizing, 
it  is  to  be  feared,  how  often  they  are  antithetic  to 
the  compactness  which  he  also  praises.  Profes 
sor  Pitkin  in  his  Short  Story  Writing  makes  a 
valuable  suggestion  concerning  the  noticeable 
psychological  mannerism  which  inflates  his  style 
at  times,  albeit  a  suggestion  that  does  not  lack 

*  "William  Dean  Howells,"  in  Harper's  (1906),  113:223. 

38  "Mr.  Howells,  you  know,  denounces  originality.  He  tells 
us  to  stick  to  the  small  things  of  life  in  fiction,  to  shun  the  big 
things.  He  has  produced,  and  his  followers  maintain,  a  literary 
style  that  is  all  Ps  and  n's  and  r's.  It  is  the  cultivation  of  a 
perfectly  flat,  even  surface.  It  is  afraid  of  rough  surfaces,  of 
mountain  peaks  and  deep  valleys. '  * — Gertrude  Atherton  as  re 
ported  in  the  New  York  Times,  reviewed  in  Current  Literature 
(1908),  44:159. 


144          William  Dean  Howells 

its  touch  of  humor  when  later  on  it  is  advised  that 
students  cultivate  vividness,  clarity,  and  dramatic 
velocity  by  rewriting  a  story  of  Howells ',  strip 
ping  it  of  verbiage.  One  would  rather  say :  read 
De  Maupassant  as  a  sovereign  antidote.  But  no 
doubt  Mr.  Pitkin  gives  that  advice  as  well. 

I  hope  I  shall  not  be  suggesting  that  our  delight 
in  the  phrasal  excellencies  of  Howells  will  not  be 
a  perpetual  one  in  saying  that  it  is  excessive  to 
the  point  of  falsity  to  credit  him,  as  Mark  Twain 
does,  with  almost  every  virtue  of  style,  including 
a  Frenchman's  solicitude  for  the  inevitable 
phrase.  I  do  not  think  it  is  finding  fault  with  his 
way  of  saying  things,  or  even  wishing  his  verbal 
manner  different  from  what  it  is,  to  insist  that  he 
cannot  be  held  up  for  the  very  highest  standard 
of  artistry.  He  suffers  unjustly  when  measured 
from  the  heights  attained  in  our  tongue  by  virtu 
osi  like  Walter  Pater,  who  took  to  heart  the  pre 
cept  of  Buskin:  "A  book  is  written,  not  to  mul 
tiply  the  voice  merely,  not  to  carry  it  merely,  but 
to  perpetuate  it."  The  perpetuation  of  the  voice 
obviously  exacts  both  a  difference  of  intention 
and  a  longer  patience  than  its  multiplication — a 
patience  that  Howells  did  not  have  and  a  differ 
ence  of  intention  that  he  did  not  clearly  under 
stand,  and  against  which  he  warned  his  pupils. 
This  difference  of  intention  Henry  James  had ;  he 
was  consciously  a  stylist,  like  the  style  or  not  as 
you  choose.  Mrs.  Wharton  has  both  the  artistic 
intent  and  a  larger  measure  of  deliberation  than 
had  James.  Take  the  dawning  of  spring  in  Italy 
as  exquisitely  depicted  in  her  Italian  Backgrounds 
(" March  in  Italy "),  as  it  challenged  the  pen  of 


His  Poetry  and  Travels          145 

Henry  James  on  his  "Roman  Rides"  (Trans 
atlantic  Sketches  of  1893),  and  as  Howells  scat 
tered  its  sweetness  through  the  last  third  of 
Tuscan  Cities,  and  observe  how  easily,  by  what  we 
commonly  know  as  French  standards,  she  bears 
off  the  prize. 

Howells'  staggering  output  is  sufficient  warrant 
that  he  did  not  conceive  art  as  a  long  patience,  but 
it  may  be  interesting  to  inquire  somewhat  more 
closely  into  his  intention,  his  theory  of  style.  His 
ideal  of  style  in  literature  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
perfectly  consonant  with  his  ideal  of  structure. 
Just  as  the  form  of  the  novel  should  be  free  and 
flexible,  adaptable  always  to  the  exact  transcrip 
tion  of  ordinary  events,  so  the  manner  of  speech 
should  be  the  ordinary  manner  of  a  clear  and 
musical  speaker.  Since  he  would  not  have  the 
form  distorted  or  molded  in  accord  with  Steven 
son's  "one  creative  and  controlling  thought,"  to 
which  every  incident  and  character  must  contrib 
ute,  he  could  not  have  the  style  pitched  "in  unison 
with  this,"  as  the  romancer  bids.  The  eternal 
vigilance  against  the  word  that  "looks  another 
way,"  the  contriving  of  patterns  and  webs  of 
discourse,  which  for  Stevenson  make  writing  a 
fine  art,  appear  to  him  of  an  artificiality  only  less 
dangerous  than  the  contriving  of  plots. 

In  boyhood,  he  played  the  ape  as  sedulously  as 
did  the  Scot ;  he  never  loved  an  author,  he  tells  us, 
without  wishing  to  write  in  his  manner.  He  could 
not  admire  even  old  Chaucer  without  borrowing 
his  archaic  phrases.  At  one  time  he  had  a  craze 
for  the  simple  Anglo-Saxon  words,  despising  most 
heartily  all  long  Latin  derivatives.  "I  still  like 


146          William  Dean  Ho  wells 

the  little  word,"  he  remarks,  "if  it  says  the  thing 
I  want  to  say  as  well  as  the  big  one,  but  I  honor 
above  all  the  word  that  says  the  thing. " 29  "To 
aim  at  succinctness  and  brevity,  merely,  as  some 
teach,  is  to  practice  a  kind  of  quackery  almost  as 
offensive  as  the  charlatanry  of  rhetoric.  In  either 
case  the  life  goes  out  of  the  subject. " 

He  came  to  learn  that  "style  is  only  a  man's 
way  of  saying  a  thing, ' ' 30  and  that  although  one 
may  always  learn  from  the  masters,  it  is  quite 
futile  to  practice  talking  in  their  various  manners. 
His  advice  to  the  youthful  contributor  is  to  "put 
aside  all  anxiety  about  style ;  that  is  a  thing  that 
will  take  care  of  itself ;  it  will  be  added  unto  him  if 
he  really  has  something  to  say."  He  continues: 

"If  he  has  not  much  to  say,  or  if  he  has  nothing 
to  say,  perhaps  he  will  try  to  say  it  in  some  other 
man  's  way,  or  to  hide  his  own  vacuity  with  rags  of 
rhetoric  and  tags  and  fringes  of  manner,  bor 
rowed  from  this  author  and  that.  He  will  fancy 
that  in  this  disguise  his  work  will  be  more  literary, 
and  that  there  is  somehow  a  quality,  a  grace,  im 
parted  to  it  which  will  charm  in  spite  of  the  in 
ward  hollowness.  His  vain  hope  would  be  pitiful 
if  it  were  not  so  shameful,  but  it  is  destined  to 
suffer  defeat  at  the  first  glance  of  the  editorial 
eye. 

"If  he  really  has  something  to  say,  however, 
about  something  he  knows  and  loves,  he  is  in  the 
best  possible  case  to  say  it  well.  Still,  from  time 
to  time  he  may  advantageously  call  a  halt,  and 
consider  whether  he  is  saying  the  thing  clearly 

"My  Literary  Passions  (1895),  p.  112. 
50 Literature  and  Life  (1902),  p.  74. 


His  Poetry  and  Travels          147 

and  simply.  If  lie  has  a  good  ear  he  will  say  it 
gracefully  and  musically;  and  I  would  by  no 
means  have  him  aim  to  say  it  barely  or  sparely. 
It  is  not  so  that  people  talk,  who  talk  well,  and 
literature  is  only  the  thought  of  the  writer  flowing 
from  the  pen  instead  of  the  tongue. ' '  31 

Hence,  Howells  is  convinced  that  we  grossly 
overestimate  the  value  of  style  as  a  permanent 
literary  quality.  He  holds  no  author  great  or 
worthy  of  remembrance  because  of  his  manner 
of  speech.  Style  he  will  have  it  is  something  that 
is  added  unto  a  writer,  whether  that  writer  be  the 
youthful  contributor  or  Dante  or  Shakespeare  or 
Tolstoi.  The  psychology  of  this  view,  which  is 
one  of  wide  and  easy  currency  at  the  present  time, 
is  beautifully  appropriate  to  its  author,  but  it  need 
not  be  adopted  literally,  any  more  than  that  of  the 
extreme  classicist,  who  looks  to  style  as  the  prime 
preservative  of  literature,  or  of  the  extreme 
euphuist,  who  carries  his  doctrine  of  unique  qual 
ity  and  inevitable  word  to  a  length  which  identifies 
manner  with  matter.  While  we  are  waiting  for 
some  one  adequately  and  finally  to  philosophize 
the  problem  of  style,  however,  we  have  the  prac 
tical  truth  to  content  us;  and  that  lies,  as  usual, 
between  extremes.  A  good  counsel  is  that  which 
would  neither  adjure  the  youthful  contributor  to 
squander  his  nights  in  quest  of  the  inevitable 
word  nor  induce  him  to  trust  the  efficacy  of  an 
occasional  halt  to  '  i  consider  whether  he  is  saying 
the  thing  clearly  and  simply.'7  The  results  of  the 
latter  procedure  are  evident  in  the  writing  of 

«  Literature  and  Life  (1902). 


148          William  Dean  Howells 

Howells,  just  as  the  results  of  Stevenson 's  method 
are  evident  in  his  writing.32 

The  fact  is,  that  very  much  as  Howells  failed  to 
dissociate  the  description  of  purely  natural 
phenomena  from  scene-painting,  he  failed  to  dis 
sociate  style  from  what  is  known  in  journalistic 
parlance  as  "fine  writing."  The  nineteenth- 
century  euphuism  which  promulgated  the  doctrine 
of  la  vrai  verite,  welcomed  by  both  aesthetes  and 
realists,  took  an  entirely  dissimilar  view  of  the 
matter.  "Fine  writing "  attaches  to  the  Eliza 
bethan  euphuism,  which  ingeniously  conceals 
thought,  or  tricks  it  out  in  fantastic  vesture,  its 
ideal  being  one  of  elegance;  whereas  the  later 
euphuism,  scientific, — pseudo-scientific,  if  you 
will, — postulates  a  unique  essence  for  every  idea, 
and  strips  the  thought  to  its  essence,  its  ideal 
being  one  of  exactitude. 

Howells,  in  practice,  rises  superbly  superior  to 
his  convictions.  He  practices,  as  do  all  who  write 
well,  the  principle  of  Flaubert,  but  with  infinitesi- 
mally  less  labor.  Observing  no  doubt  that  in 
striving  for  style  he  misses  it,  he  cautions  others 
not  to  strive.  So  great  is  his  facility  in  the  easy, 
almost  conversational  manner,  that,  for  him, 
strife  does  not  connote  any  endeavor  to  preciser 
that  manner ;  it  connotes  literosity  rather.  When 

M ' '  And,  on  the  other  hand,  how  many  do  we  continue  to 
peruse  and  reperuse  with  pleasure  whose  only  merit  is  elegance 
of  texture?  I  am  tempted  to  mention  Cicero;  and  since  Mr. 
Anthony  Trollope  is  dead,  I  will.  It  is  a  poor  diet  for  the 
mind,  a  very  colorless  and  toothless  'criticism  of  life';  but  we 
may  enjoy  the  pleasure  of  a  most  intricate  and  dexterous  pat 
tern,  every  stitch  a  model  at  once  of  elegance  and  of  good 
sense;  and  the  two  oranges,  even  if  one  of  them  be  rotten,  kept 
dancing  with  inimitable  grace." — On  Style  in  Literature. 


His  Poetry  and  Travels          149 

he  does  go  out  of  his  way  to  attain  style,  he  is 
very  apt  to  throw  off  some  image  that  can  be 
branded  as  "literose,"  that  takes  the  eye  off  the 
object,  as  Wordsworth  explained  it  in  his  stric 
tures  on  Pope.  This  is  ' '  style, ' '  but  it  would  have 
made  Flaubert  cringe  with  horror,  to  the  delight, 
no  doubt,  of  the  refractory  Zola :  ' '  The  wheel  of 
the  steamer  was  as  usual  chewing  the  sea,  and 
finding  it  unpalatable,  and  making  vain  efforts  at 
expectoration. ' ' 33  Mr.  Pitkin  would  have  his 
students  expunge  the  italicized  clause  from  the 
following  sentence :  '  '  The  sunset  struck  its  hard 
red  light  through  the  fringe  of  leafless  trees  to  the 
westward,  and  gave  their  outlines  that  black  defi 
nition  which  a  French  school  of  landscape  saw  a 
few  years  ago,  and  now  seems  to  see  no  longer."  84 
Mr.  Pitkin  objects  quite  properly  that  this  clause, 
which  appears  to  be  ' l  a  sober  historical  allusion, ' ' 
is  in  reality  "a  private  reminiscence,"  and  as 
such  is  to  be  identified  with  the  psychological 
mannerism.  However  it  be  classified,  it  is  an 
evasion  of  the  labor  which  a  perfect  stylist  ex 
pends  in  search  of  le  mot  juste,  a  more  pleasing 
evasion  than  the  strained  metaphor  of  the  expec 
torating  wheel,  but  an  evasion  none  the  less.  One 
need  not  be  hyperaesthetic  to  feel  that  the  follow 
ing  description  removes  the  mind's  eye  some 
thousands  of  miles  from  its  object:  "By  and  by 
they  passed  a  fisherman  drawing  his  nets,  and 
bending  from  his  boat,  there  near  Albany,  N.Y., 
in  the  picturesque  immortal  attitudes  of 
Raphael's  Galilean  fisherman;  and  now  a  flush 

*  Italian  Journeys,  p.  273. 

"Short  Story  Writing  (1912),  pp.  117  and  119. 


150          William  Dean  Howells 

mounted  the  pale  face  of  the  east,  and  through 
the  dewy  coolness  of  the  dawn  there  came,  more 
to  the  sight  than  to  any  other  sense,  a  vague 
menace  of  heat."  35  It  is  quite  possible  that  here 
the  author  wished  to  reflect  the  thoughts  of  his 
characters,  rather  than  give  his  reader  a  pristine 
impression;  if  so,  he  fell  a  little  below  his  own 
standard  of  doing  that  sort  of  thing ;  and  the  man 
nerism  is  none  the  less  his  very  own  mannerism, 
which  he  carried  so  far  as  to  indicate  the  bodily 
posture  and  verbal  accent  of  a  character  by  com 
parison  with  those  of  an  actor  no  longer  living. 

Neither  was  Howells  concerned  for  the  style 
that  preserves — or  is  supposed  to  preserve — 
writing  against  the  corrosion  of  time  nor  did  he 
achieve  it.  His  style,  if  simply  examined  with 
reference  to  its  sources  of  interest,  will  be  found 
hardly  to  exist  outside  of  its  author's  acute  feel 
ing  for  men  and  women.  Mastery  of  dialogue,  the 
language  of  men  and  women,  is  its  crowning 
glory.  Even  those  hostile  to  Howells'  social  and 
artistic  ideals  will  tell  you  that  he  has  no  com 
petitor  living  or  dead  in  this  branch  of  the  nar 
rative  art.  And  I  have  exposed  in  excerpts  the 
secret  of  his  descriptive  vitality  together  with 
something  of  its  limitations.  His  instinct  for  con 
crete  humanity  lends  it  the  power  it  has  and  also 
delimits  it.  And  the  venerable  figure  of  the  Vene 
tian  coffee-burner  will  perhaps  suffice  to  show 
how  the  humanity  that  in  the  concrete  was  an 
absorption  with  him  was  in  the  abstract  an  in 
toxication.  For  he  loved  Man  not  only  as  Chaucer 
loved  him,  but  as  Spinoza  loved  God. 

u  Their  Wedding  Journey  (ed.  1899),  p.  78. 


His  Poetry  and  Travels          151 

It  is  a  somewhat  ironic  circumstance  that  Mark 
Twain,  one  of  the  few  to  realize  the  true  source 
of  Howells'  perfection  as  an  artist,  should  be  the 
chief  of  those  who  exalt  him  as  a  stylist.  But  if 
he  was  excessive  in  crediting  his  paragon  with  a 
Gallic  reverence  for  le  mot  juste,  he  atoned  nobly 
by  himself  capturing  one  of  the  inevitable  words, 
in  what  is  thus  far  the  most  felicitous  characteri 
zation  we  have — sustained.  In  any  of  the  mem 
orable  records  of  his  wanderings,  and  in  his  novels 
and  tales  as  well,  it  may  be  noted  how  remarkably 
Howells'  prose  displays  this  quality.  This  quality 
it  is  which  reveals  in  him  the  sincere  and  exquisite 
prosateur,  even  as  the  absence  of  the  same  token 
betrays  the  mediocre  versifier.  "I  intrench  my 
self,  "  says  Mark,  "behind  that  protecting  word. 
There  are  others  who  exhibit  those  great  qualities 
as  greatly  as  does  he,  but  only  by  intervalled 
distributions  of  rich  moonlight,  with  stretches  of 
veiled  and  dimmer  landscape  between;  whereas 
Howells  's  moon  sails  cloudless  skies  all  night  and 
all  the  nights." 


VI 

HIS  FICTION:  TRANSCRIPTS  OF  LIFE 

DESPITE  Howells  >  prodigious  versatility, 
literature  became  for  him  almost  synony 
mous  with  fiction.  In  this  his  practice  is  con 
sonant  with  his  theory,  which  makes  but  little  of 
literature  in  other  than  the  narrative  form  and 
recognizes  the  novel  as  the  type  of  types.  Indeed, 
the  production  of  novels  was  the  serious  business 
of  his  literary  life.  Such  being  the  case,  it  may 
appear  an  anomalous  circumstance  in  his  devel 
opment  that  he  should  have  approached  the  su 
preme  genre  with  hesitance  and  long  delay.  This 
circumstance  in  a  development  more  precocious 
than  retarded  may  even  seem  to  support  the  hy 
pothesis  that  has  grown  up  about  the  suggestion 
of  Eobert  Louis  Stevenson,  that  Howells  forced 
his  talent  in  undertaking  the  realistic  novel  at  all. 
The  long  apprenticeship  and  the  timidity  of  han 
dling  observable  in  his  early  examples,  however, 
far  from  indicating  a  natural  inaptitude,  are  evi 
dences  of  his  sincerity  in  method. 

It  is  frequently  said  that  no  author  writes  a 
sound  novel  before  he  is  forty  (Henry  James 
made  it  thirty) ;  and  Howells  is  of  that  distin 
guished  company  whose  sound  instincts  prevented 
them  from  writing  any  novels  before  hard  upon 
the  forties.  Their  Wedding  Journey  (1872) 

152 


His  Fiction:  Transcripts  of  Life  153 

scarcely  pretended  to  be  a  novel ;  it  was  not  until 
his  third  essay  in  the  form,  A  Foregone  Conclu 
sion  (1875),  written  at  the  age  of  thirty-seven, 
that  he  attained  novelistic  stature  in  intent,  that 
he  completely  overcame  his  unwillingness  to  leave 
the  actual  and  embraced  the  imaginatively  real. 
His  enamorment  of  the  actual  and  his  reluctance 
to  give  wing  to  his  imagination,  while  thus  delay 
ing  the  development  of  his  novel,  had  the  fortu 
nate  effect  of  bringing  him  to  the  form  with  the 
perfected  style  and  the  cultivated  faculty  of  ob 
servation  very  necessary  for  success  in  his  par 
ticular  kind.  Such  a  story  as  Their  Wedding 
Journey  would  have  failed  dismally  not  only  in 
the  hands  of  an  immature  writer,  but  in  those  of 
any  writer  without  his  very  special  gifts  and 
training.  Henry  James,  who  underwent  no  such 
training,  found  himself  when  scarcely  younger, 
which  makes  it  instructive  to  note  that  his  devel 
opment,  unlike  that  of  Howells,  was  from  an  im 
mature  handling  of  the  imaginatively  bold  to  an 
artistic  treatment  of  the  normal,  while  the  older 
man,  coming  to  the  writing  of  fiction  with  his 
ideals  and  methods  comparatively  fixed,  made  a 
deliberate  and  cautious  advance  from  the  com 
monplace  and  clearly  verifiable  towards  the  ab 
normal  and  the  more  striking  aspects  of  the 
normal. 

Henry  James,  moreover,  had  not  and  never 
acquired  a  humanity  capable  of  inspiring  in  him 
an  affection  for  the  commonplace.  He  and  his 
father  before  him  were  exiles  in  their  native  land, 
precisely  because  it  was  crude  and  common. 
Howells  and  his  father  before  him  were  firmly 


154          William  Dean  Howells 

rooted,  making  the  crudeness  and  commonness 
gladly  their  portion  because  it  was  alive,  human, 
and  real.  Howells  felt  the  charm,  the  spell  of  the 
Old  World,  just  as  did  James,  but  it  never  had 
the  effect  of  making  the  New  World  in  his  eyes 
flat  and  profitless.  Coming  from  the  more  primi 
tive  West,  he  found  in  what  seemed  to  James  the 
crudities  of  the  East,  particularly  in  the  intel 
lectual  life  of  Boston  and  its  environs,  the  grati 
fication  which  James  found  in  manorial  England. 
Color  and  picturesqueness  he  found  and  continued 
to  find  in  all  places  where  men  dwell,  since  color 
and  picturesqueness  are  not  conditioned  by  archi 
tecture  and  costume,  however  delightful  these 
things  may  be,  but  by  a  state  of  mind  and  heart  in 
the  observer.  His  early  environment  was  wholly 
fortunate,  since  it  was  supplemented  by  cosmo 
politan  experience,  in;  reinforcing  an  inherited 
temperament  which  made  for  an  estimate  of  mod 
ern  life  comparatively  free  from  illusion.  It 
helped  make  of  him  an  interpreter  of  America,  of 
American  democracy,  clear  and  exacting,  if  not 
like  Whitman  joyously  cleaving  the  heavenward 
spaces.  In  this  difference  lies  the  final  reason 
why  Henry  James  could  not  have  written  Their 
Wedding  Journey. 

The  story,  if  it  can  be  called  a  story,  shows 
how  clearly  the  genesis  of  the  Howells  novel  lies 
in  the  books  of  travel  and  those  engaging  minia 
tures  of  life  at  home  collected  under  the  title 
Suburban  Sketches  (1871).  It  is  really  a  sketch 
on  magnified  dimensions,  dimensions  made  pos 
sible  by  the  fact  that  it  is  also  a  travel  book.  It 
is  perfectly  transitional,  and  therein  lies  its  chief 


His  Fiction:  Transcripts  of  Life   155 

interest.  We  could  not  wish  Howells  to  have 
repeated  its  type  with  any  frequency;  for  the 
advantage  of  the  novel  over  the  sketch  and  the 
short-story  being  the  ampler  canvas,  there  is  small 
point  in  any  writer's  choosing  the  larger  form 
and  spurning  the  opportunity  offered  for  the  de 
velopment  of  character.  Their  Wedding  Journey, 
however,  does  have  the  merit  of  being  so  thor 
oughly  consistent  with  itself  that  it  would  hardly 
occur  to  question  its  propriety  were  it  not  for  the 
manner  in  which  the  author  confides  his  own 
questioning.  If  there  is  any  little  lapse  in  taste 
to  mar  this  pleasant  work  it  is  the  author's  mis 
calculation  of  the  power  of  ironic  cajolery.  He 
begins  by  expressing  a  distrust  of  his  fitness  for 
1 1  a  sustained  or  involved  narration, ' ' l  and  on  this 
account  refrains  from  rehearsing  the  love  story 
antecedent  to  the  journey.  Again,  he  queries: 
"Do  I  pitch  the  pipe  too  low?  We  poor  honest 
men  are  at  a  sad  disadvantage ;  and  now  and  then 
I  am  minded  to  give  a  loose  to  fancy,  and  attribute 
something  really  grand  and  fine  to  my  people,  in 
order  to  make  them  worthier  the  reader's  re 
spected  acquaintance."2  Such  implicit  commen 
dation  of  his  wares,  while  seeming  to  bespeak  im 
maturity,  is  by  no  means  to  be  accounted  an  indis 
cretion  of  youth.  Quite  to  the  contrary,  it  is  but 
a  milder  manifestation  of  a  kind  of  reclame  ob 
servable  in  his  later  and  more  pretentious  work, 
which  introduces  romantic  fiction  as  a  corrupting 
influence  upon  his  characters,  as  in  The  Minister's 
Charge,  or  even  gives  some  of  the  characters  a 

1  Their  Wedding  Journey  (1899),  p.  1. 
•Ibid.,  p.  239. 


156          William  Dean  Howells 

polemical  cast,  as  when  the  insane  hero  of  The 
Shadow  of  a  Dream  is  made  a  rabid  romanticist 
and  idolater  of  Byron. 

'In  the  present  instance,  no  manner  of  apology 
is  called  for,  since  the  book  could  not  deliver  more 
exactly  what  it  promises.  It  details  the  experi 
ences  of  Basil  and  Isabel  March,  incognito,  after 
the  manner  of  bridal  couples,  on  their  honeymoon 
trip  to  Niagara,  the  St.  Lawrence,  Montreal,  and 
Quebec.  Clever  in  portraiture,  rich  in  historical 
flavor,  and  in  kaleidoscopic  description,  with  a 
classic  bit  of  scene-painting  at  Niagara,  the  work 
has  its  most  remarkable  quality  in  the  air  of  ad 
venture  investing  the  thousand  little  incidents  of 
travel.  This,  its  life-essence,  no  reader  can  or 
need  be  argued  into  accepting.  He  should  feel  it 
a  phenomenon — the  roll  of  an  express-train  into 
the  night ;  but  if  he  does  not,  he  will  not  be  cajoled 
into  doing  so. 

~'Tn  the  persons  of  the  Marches,  it  is  fair  to 
assume,  Howells  has  incarnated  his  idea  of  the 
normal  male  and  female  of  our  species.  They 
appear  again  and  again  in  his  novels,  advancing 
in  years  with  their  creator,  receiving  now  and 
then  a  biographical  touch,  lovingly  bestowed,  but 
certainly  sharing  more  in  his  irrepressible  vitality 
than  in  his  deepening  wisdom.  "But  where,"  I 
hear  the  reader  ask,  "do  you  get  a  standard  of 
normality f"  In  truth,  the  matter  is  sadly  sub 
jective.  The  Marches,  however,  do  succeed  in 
passing  most  of  the  convenient  tests.  For  one 
thing,  they  affect  us  variously  according  to  our 
moods,  and  thus  represent  pretty  faithfully  the 
dull  average  of  humanity.  At  rare  and  idealistic 


His  Fiction:  Transcripts  of  Life    157 

moments,  our  hearts  surcharged  with  esteem  for 
our  fellow-men,  we  spurn  them  contemptuously  as 
libels  on  our  kind ;  and  then  in  pessimistic  mood, 
rebellious  at  the  simian  antics  of  God's  creatures, 
we  welcome  them  as  at  least  a  shade  more  wise 
than  most.  They  are  in  general  less  constant  in 
their  effect,  more  complete  and  subtle,  than  the 
bookish  characters  we  know,  and  always  a  trifle 
below  the  level  we  expect  people  with  their  ad 
vantages  to  attain. 

The  variety  they  most  conspicuously  attain  as 
fictional  creations  is  two-fold.  In  the  first  place, 
although  they  are  static  characters  to  whom  life 
has  very  little  to  teach,  they  do  grow  old.  The 
worldly  wisdom  that  comes  to  every  one  as  a 
consequence  of  living  is  nowhere  more  beautifully 
made  evident  than  in  the  Marches  as  we  meet 
them,  unchanged  but  indescribably  mellowed  in 
A  Hazard  of  New  Fortunes  (1889)  and  Their, 
Silver  Wedding  Journey  (1899).  More  striking, 
however,  is  their  emotional  susceptibility  to  the 
situation  in  which  they  happen  to  be  placed ;  their 
thought  is  tinctured  by  the  mood  of  the  dramatic 
moment ;  they  are  true  spectators.  This  is  wholly 
fortunate  when  it  is  artistically  desirable  to  re 
inforce  the  atmosphere  of  a  scene  by  its  reaction 
upon  sympathetic  natures,  but  not  so  fortunate 
when  foils  are  desired  to  throw  its  elements  into 
relief.  This  might  pass  unnoted  had  not  Howells 
on  occasion  used  his  Marches  for  the  latter  pur 
pose  so  perfectly,  as  in  A  Pair  of  Patient  Lovers 
(1901),  where  they  play  their  parts  with  a  detach 
ment  suggestive  of  Ben  Jonson's  comedy  of  hu 
mors.  They  maintain  a  sympathy  with  the  prin- 


158          William  Dean  Howells 

cipal  characters,  who  are  quite  abnormal,  un 
known  to  the  norms  of  Jonsonian  comedy,  but  at 
the  same  time  intensify  and  clarify  the  effect  of 
the  action.  A  dismal  contrast  is  the  Hawthorn- 
esque  tale,  The  Shadow  of  a  Dream  (1890),  so 
fatally  deficient  in  chiaroscuro,  where  our  dear 
friends  become  positively  morbid,  as  direly  shad 
owed  by  the  dream  as  any  of  the  miserable  com 
pany. 

To  depict  the  effect  upon  the  Marches  of  ad 
vancing  age  is  the  motive  for  the  additional  chap 
ter  added  to  editions  of  Their  Wedding  Journey 
subsequent  to  1887,  "Niagara  Revisited,  Twelve 
Years  After  Their  Wedding  Journey. "  Life  has 
not  used  them  ill;  neither  have  they  enjoyed  too 
much  prosperity.  The  parents  of  two  children, 
they  have  in  fact  come  to  the  practice  of  certain 
mean  economies.  Marriage  for  Isabel  has  not 
realized  "the  poetic  dream  of  a  perfect  union  that 
a  girl  imagines  it.  ...  It  was  a  state  of  trial,  of 
probation ;  it  was  an  ordeal,  not  an  ecstasy. ' ' 8 
Less  depressing  is  Their  Silver  Wedding  Journey 
(1899),  the  longest  chronicle  devoted  exclusively 
to  the  Marches,  where  the  theme  of  disillusion 
ment  is  more  lightly  handled. 

Basil,  now  the  editor  of  Every  Other  Week,  the 
rise  of  which  journal  furnishes  the  title  A  Hazard 
of  New  Fortunes  (1889),  takes  a  Sabbatical  year 
on  leave,  which,  counting  time,  is  neither  a  Sab 
batical  year  nor  a  silver  wedding  journey.  With 
much  ado,  he  persuades  his  eager  consort,  con 
firmed  in  the  feminine  wiles  of  contrariness,  that 
they  should  renew  the  memories  of  their  courtship 

*  Their  Wedding  Journey  (1899),  p.  317. 


His  Fiction:  Transcripts  of  Life  159 

abroad.  The  result  is  a  complete  travel  book, 
augmented  in  volume  and  turned  into  novelistic 
form  by  the  addition  of  a  flirtatious  love  story, 
true  to  the  Howells  type,  in  which  Mrs.  March  is 
given  ample  opportunity  to  practice  her  art  as 
match-maker.  Her  skill  in  this  art,  hinted  in 
Their  Wedding  Journey  and  exhaustively  exhib 
ited  in  subsequent  volumes,  we  are  led  to  believe, 
is,  like  her  contrariety  and  illogicality,  a  natural 
endowment  of  woman,  more  or  less  incompre 
hensible  to  man.  Howells'  incessant  playing  upon 
these  three  motives,  together  with  the  less  gra 
cious  one  of  hysterics,  has  outraged  many  critics, 
who  are  not  at  all  assuaged  by  the  perception  that 
the  Howells  men  betray  complementary  though 
different  intellectual  deficiencies.  I  believe  that 
it  is  the  men  rather  than  the  women  themselves 
who  refuse  to  accept  the  Howells  portrayals ;  and 
I  believe  that  it  is  no  longer  necessary  to  say 
much  on  this  topic,  for  despite  the  rather  frequent 
explosions  of  indignation  it  has  become  pretty 
well  established  as  a  canon  of  Howells  criticism 
that  he  displays  a  very  remarkable  insight  into 
the  feminine  heart.  It  ought  to  be  said,  however, 
that  the  three  major  motives  indicated  do  not 
merely  represent  superficial  annoyances.  The 
illogicality  of  the  Howells  woman  in  general  and 
of  Mrs.  March  in  particular,  for  example,  enables 
her  to  compass  a  pure  idealism  that  sometimes 
mystifies  and  sometimes  inspires  the  men  under 
her  influence  and  not  infrequently  works  out  in 
pure  goodness  and  kindness.  Kindness  and  good 
ness,  of  course,  should  not  be  allowed  to  happen 
in  that  way ;  but  that  is  the  way  in  which  they  do 


160          William  Dean  Howells 

very  often  happen.  Every  day  we  are  called  upon 
to  admire  benefactors  who  are  in  no  sense  models 
of  mentality  and  who  have  probably  proceeded  on 
entirely  wrong  assumptions,  and  even  to  love 
them.  So  to  accept  a  Howells  heroine  is  not,  as 
one  incensed  critic  puts  it,  "to  believe  the  future 
of  our  country  hopeless/'  It  is  perhaps  to  be 
lieve  that  the  progress  of  our  country,  or  the  hap 
piness  of  any  one  of  us,  will  not  be  along  the  beau 
tiful  lines  of  logic.  Howells'  own  acceptance  of 
his  women  is  based  very  little  on  gallantry  and 
still  less  on  illusion ;  it  goes  with  his  ready  accept 
ance  of  all  reality,  and  his  disposition,  somewhat 
vociferously  discovered  by  the  above-mentioned 
critic,  to  "throw  the  responsibility  on  the  Al 
mighty.  "  In  Their  Silver  Wedding  Journey,  a 
finished  and  unobtrusive  handling  of  his  favorite 
motives,  added  to  a  nicely  balanced  wielding  of  the 
theme  of  age  versus  youth,  which  he  exhausted 
in  Indian  Summer  (1886),  enlivens  the  sojourning 
and  sight-seeing  in  Hamburg,  Leipsic,  Carlsbad, 
Weimar,  and  Berlin.  Finally,  Mrs.  March  decides 
they  shall  not  go  home.  Then  we  are  sure  they 
are  on  their  way. 

The  Marches  share  with  many  others  of  How 
ells  '  people  their  pleasing  habit  of  walking  in  and 
out  of  his  scene.  Although  he  has  never  chosen  to 
follow  in  the  scientific  fashion  of  Thackeray  or 
Zola  the  fortunes  of  any  single  family,  and  has 
written  but  one  bona  fide  sequel,  the  Utopian  ro 
mance,  Through  the  Eye  of  the  Needle,  he  is  prop 
erly  loath  to  relinquish  the  personages  of  his  crea 
tion,  right  realistically  permitting  his  reader  to 
renew  their  acquaintance,  or  to  catch  unexpected 


His  Fiction:  Transcripts  of  Life   161 

glimpses  of  them  here  and  there.  This  practice 
imparts  a  convincing  unity  to  his  comedie  hu- 
maine.  Our  casual  meeting  with  Mr.  Percy 
Bysshe  Shelley  Ray,  the  promising  young  novelist 
of  The  World  of  Chance,  after  five  years,  in  The 
Story  of  a  Play,  is  managed  in  a  way  to  leave  a 
brisk  sense  of  the  touch  and  go  of  actual  affairs. 
The  presence  of  the  Hilarys  in  the  latter  book  is 
an  instance  of  the  more  thoroughgoing  treatment 
which  does  illumine  the  history  of  a  family.  Or 
dinarily,  however,  there  is  no  profound  purpose 
in  the  resumption,  but  a  gratification  of  our  sense 
of  familiarity  with  his  world.  Such  is  the  effect 
when  we  take  up  the  second  novel,  A  Chance  Ac 
quaintance  (1873),  of  our  having  caught  a  glimpse 
of  its  charming  heroine,  Kitty  Ellison,  in  Their 
Wedding  Journey. 

While  the  travel  interest  gets  the  better  of  the 
first  story,  the  imaginative  eclipses  the  actual  in 
the  second,  which  is  descriptive  of  travel  through 
the  same  region.  To  this  work  he  brings  a  ma 
turity  in  the  development  of  theme  and  a  deftness 
in  the  handling  of  plot,  slight  as  the  plot  is,  com 
parable  to  the  finish  of  style  and  the  keenness  of 
observation  noted  in  the  earlier  book.  More  re 
markable  even  than  the  fact  of  his  attaining  these 
qualities  at  a  bound,  is  the  evidence  afforded  of 
their  utter  nativeness  to  him.  The  dominant 
themes  are  not  only  heavily  foreshadowed  in 
Their  Wedding  Journey  but  are  prophetic  of  his 
future  writings.  His  concern  with  the  affairs  of 
the  heart,  his  general  treatment  of  the  love  theme, 
as  well  as  his  tricks  of  illuminating  the  feminine 
mind  and  contrasting  the  sexes,  his  preoccupation 


162          William  Dean  Howells 

with  the  question  of  social  distinctions,  and,  above 
x  all,  his  sturdy  nationalism,  were  to  be  with  him  al 
ways  very  much  as  they  were  with  him  in  A 
Chance  Acquaintance.  Primarily,  however,  the 
volume  is  a  study  of  American  aristocracy,  the 
caste  spirit  in  conflict  with  the  leveling  force  of 
love.  It  is  the  American  Pride  and  Prejudice. 

The  story  is  set  in  motion  by  an  exceedingly 
commonplace  and  lifelike  accident  of  travel.  Miss 
Kitty  inadvertently  takes  the  arm  of  Mr.  Miles 
Arbuton,  the  aristocratic  protagonist;  and  the 
embarrassing  episode  which  ensues  is  made  very 
naturally  to  prepare  the  way  to  a  delightful 
steamboat  acquaintanceship.  This  acquaintance 
ship  is  brought  to  the  stage  of  love  with  an  expe 
dition  scarcely  paralleled  except  in  the  romantic 
comedy  Out  of  the  Question,  for  Howells '  heroes 
and  heroines  have  remarkable  difficulties  in  de 
ciding  whether  or  not  they  are  in  love — his  pro 
test  against  the  romantic  doctrine  of  love  at  first 
sight.  A  climax  of  the  most  noiseless  and  perfect 
nature  finally  separates  the  ill-mated  pair,  after 
the  incompatibility  of  such  a  sweet,  sincere,  and 
democratic  soul  as  Kitty  Ellison  with  such  a  mon 
ster  of  inane  insolence  and  condescension  as  Mr. 
Arbuton  has  been  demonstrated  from  a  thousand 
angles,  so  that  the  ending,  incidentally  a  protest 
against  the  romantic  doctrine  that  love  levels  all 
barriers,  is  inevitable,  just  as  the  ending  of  Pride 
and  Prejudice,  which  does  not  erect  impassable 
barriers,  is  inevitable. 

If  A  Chance  Acquaintance  fail  to  transmit  the 
full  artistic  satisfaction  of  Pride  and  Prejudice, 
it  is  because  the  problem  transferred  to  American 


His  Fiction:  Transcripts  of  Life  163 

soil  and  adapted  to  American  conditions,  offers 
difficulties  that 'the  Divine  Jane  did  not  have  to 
reckon  with.  American  aristocracy  is  at  best  a 
very  unlovely  manifestation — spasmodic,  refrac 
tory,  and  implastic  to  the  artist's  hand,  no  true 
aristocracy  at  all  to  the  purpose  of  Henry  James. 
And  in  Mr.  Miles  Arbuton,  Howells,  as  if  on  a 
wager,  furnished  himself  with  a  subject  as  vacu 
ous  as  one  could  possibly  find.  Beside  him,  Basil 
March  is  a  hero  of  romance.  An  idiot  is  pictur 
esque  and  usually  appealing,  but  an  educated, 
travelled,  well-dressed  man  with  no  vestige  of  in 
telligence  is  a  challenge  to  the  subtlest  art.  The 
aggressive  egoism  of  Silas  Lapham  and  Sir  Wil- 
loughby  Patterne  has  an  inherent  fascination  of 
which  the  utterly  passive  egoism  of  Miles  Arbuton 
is  quite  devoid.  Consequently,  Howells  not  only 
set  himself  a  difficult  task  but  weakened  at  the 
outstart  what  is  one  of  the  strongest  features  of 
Pride  and  Prejudice — the  love  motivation.  The 
conclusion  of  A  Chance  Acquaintance  is  inevita 
ble,  but  the  beginning  of  Jane  Austen's  novel  is 
compulsory.  Howells  is  of  course  prevented  by 
the  nature  of  his  problem  from  crediting  his  hero 
with  the  blameless  manners  admired  by  the  ladies, 
the  import  of  the  action  being  that  this  blameless 
person,  in  the  sense  that  he  would  die  rather  than 
in  any  way  violate  the  conventions,  is  from  the 
simply  human  point  of  view  boorish  and  cruel. 
He  does,  however,  try  for  a  point  d'appui  by  leav 
ing  us  to  believe  with  the  ladies  that  his  creation 
is  very  handsome  and  that,  although  he  is  too  well- 
bred  for  humor,  there  is  a  certain  aptness  in  his 
wit.  The  latter  is  somewhat  difficult  for  any  one 


164          William  Dean  Howells 

who  enjoys  humor  to  see,  and  the  illustrator,  evi 
dently  brushed  by  the  mantle  of  George  Cruik- 
shank,  has  done  for  the  former.  Mr.  Arbuton 
touches  humanity  for  one  frenzied  moment,  in 
which  he  so  far  loses  his  dignity  as  to  throw  a 
pebble  against  the  cliff  at  Cape  Eternity,  a  mo 
ment  in  which  "he  feared  himself  capable  of  shak 
ing  hands  with  the  shabby  Englishman  in  the 
Glengarry  cap,  or  of  asking  the  whole  admiring 
company  of  passengers  down  to  the  bar. ' ' 

It  ought  also  to  be  remembered  that  Pride  and 
Prejudice  is  variously  great  and  altogether  of  a 
high  excellence  below  which  it  is  not  a  defect  so 
much  as  an  inevitability  to  fall.  Howells  in  his 
manner  of  telling  his  story  makes  technical  feats 
of  some  things  that  go  for  granted  in  Jane  Aus 
ten  's,  and  this  is  to  lose  something  of  brightness 
and  charm.  The  matter  of  the  author 's  attitude 
toward  his  characters,  so  far  as  it  affects  these 
two  stories,  is  not  structural  but  pervasive,  de 
termining  the  color  and  tone  of  the  whole.  Each 
attains  impartiality  and  formal  objectivity  of 
manner,  but  the  English  work,  for  all  that  it  lashes 
the  presumptions  and  condescensions  of  aristoc 
racy,  is  saturate  with  sunshine.  Its  shade  is  the 
mottled  glory  of  ancestral  parks.  Its  author, 
though  she  clearly  speaks  through  the  lips  of 
Elizabeth  Bennet  in  that  immortal  scene  which 
depicts  the  taking  down  of  Lady  Catharine  de 
Burgh,  is  nevertheless  completely  detached,  as 
wholly  superior  to  Elizabeth  as  to  the  irate  lady. 
Howells,  for  all  the  wholesome  fun  he  makes,  does 
not  quite  achieve  that  superb  and  unconscious 


His  Fiction:  Transcripts  of  Life  165 

aloofness  which  insures  his  way  of  telling  the 
story  against  tincture  from  the  emotions  of  his 
characters.  It  is  not  so  much  that  we  feel  his  sym 
pathetic  preoccupation  with  the  perplexities  of 
his  people  as  that  we  detect  self -consciousness  in 
the  elaborate  attentions  he  bestows  upon  them. 
The  danger  of  all  "psychologizing"  in  fiction 
(Howells  does  not  offend  here  as  he  does  in  such 
a  later  novel  as  Fennel  and  Rue)  lies  in  muddling 
the  color,  not  in  disturbing  the  structure  or  alter 
ing  the  real  import  of  the  work.  Trifles  light  as 
air  become  clothed  in  the  trimmings  of  tragedy,  so 
that  the  most  ordinary  situation  takes  the  cast  of 
"inexorable  fate/'  or  "sinister  chance,"  and 
dawns  upon  the  participants  with  "paralyzing 
clearness."  Headers  of  Heroines  of  Fiction  may 
recall  Howells '  high  admiration  for  Jane  Aus 
ten  's  skill  in  the  utilization  of  trivial  events,  es 
pecially  his  just  and  amusing  appreciation  of  the 
lifelike  quality  in  Anne  Eliot's  rescue  from  the 
teasing  clutches  of  two-year-old  Walter  in  Per 
suasion;  and  his  own  rescues  usually  have  the  true 
Austenian  ring.  In  A  Chance  Acquaintance  it  is 
true  that  he  employs  a  more  formidable  device 
than  a  naughty  little  boy — a  dog;  but  again  the 
slight  difference  in  tone  is  due  to  the  fact  that 
he  forces  the  note.  His  trivialities  are  insisted 
upon,  whereas  Jane  Austen  never  for  a  moment 
conveys  the  impression  that  hers  are  anything 
more  than  the  trivialities  they  are.  She  continues 
to  reap  the  reward  of  a  superbly  unconscious  su 
periority  to  her  material;  while  Howells  is  fre 
quently  caught  exhibiting  his,  with  an  air  of  say- 


166          William  Dean  Howells 

ing,  "Behold,  how  delightfully  insignificant ! ' ' 
much  as  a  romancer  might  exclaim, ' '  Behold,  how 
sublime ! ' ' 

The  romantic  comedy  Out  of  the  Question 
(1877)  deals  with  the  same  problem  of  American 
aristocracy,  but  after  the  fashion  of  stageland. 
In  the  interests  of  theatric  effect,  the  conditions 
are  reversed,  the  hero,  Blake,  being  a  poor  but 
immaculate  steamboat  engineer,  very  importunate 
in  the  service  of  the  aristocratic  Mrs.  Bellingham 
and  her  daughter  Leslie,  having  been  started  in 
that  direction  by  the  exactions  of  Aunt  Kate.  The 
scene  plays  at  the  Ponkwasset  Hotel,  a  country 
hostelry  familiar  to  Howells '  readers.  In  the  ad 
jacent  woods,  our  hero  rescues  Miss  Leslie  from 
a  couple  of  brigands,  and,  not  content  with  that, 
pursues  the  ruffians  and  rends  from  them  their 
booty,  receiving  in  the  encounter  a  broken  wrist. 
His  modesty,  on  all  occasions  nauseous,  is  quite 
ludicrous  when,  torn  and  bleeding,  he  pretends  to 
have  found  the  watch  quite  by  accident.  The  zeal 
of  his  creator,  however,  comes  very  near  spoiling 
him  as  a  stage  hero,  through  an  excessive  expo 
sition  of  his  sublime  qualities.  His  spiritual 
graces  no  doubt  require  testimony  from  the  other 
characters,  but  it  is  bad  dramatic  technique  to 
have  them  forever  commenting  on  his  handsome 
face  and  superb  figure.  No  actor  is  to  be  envied 
who  has  an  entrance  cued  in  this  manner :  '  '  Hello ! 
That's  Blake's  voice  now.  ...  I  don't  wonder  it 
takes  Leslie.  It's  the  most  sympathetic  voice  in 
the  world."4 

But  that  Blake 's  goodness  and  greatness  should 

*  Out  of  the  Question  (1877),  p.  153. 


His  Fiction:  Transcripts  of  Life   167 

avail  to  win  the  hand  of  the  fair  Leslie  is  "out  of 
the  question/'  Having  once  been  a  steamboat 
engineer,  he  can  never  be  a  "gentleman." 
Accordingly,  Mr.  Charles  Bellingham,  Leslie's 
brother,  is  summoned  to  give  him  his  conge  in  a 
merciful  manner.  The  superstructure  of  moving 
accident  is  about  to  be  completed  by  the  discovery 
that  Blake  is  known  to  Mr.  Charles  of  old,  is  re 
vered  by  him  as  a  paragon  of  manly  virtue,  and  is 
bound  and  endeared  to  him  as  his  savior  from  a 
watery  death  in  the  Mississippi,  when  suddenly 
the  character  of  the  play  changes  from  romantic 
comedy  to  farce.  With  the  swiftness  of  magic, 
the  questions  raised  by  the  first  part  are  dropped, 
and  the  subject  is  now  the  diplomacy  of  Mr. 
Charles  Bellingham,  the  manner  adopted  being 
that  of  the  one-act  farces.  For  this  reason  Out  of 
the  Question  is  hardly  to  be  regarded  as  a  com 
plement  to  A  Chance  Acquaintance. 

A  Counterfeit  Presentment  (1877)  was  the  sec 
ond  and  last  of  Howells'  flirtations  with  melo 
drama.  It  enjoyed  presentation  with  Lawrence 
Barrett  in  the  leading  role;  and,  parenthetically, 
it  may  interest  theatre-goers  of  this  generation  to 
know  that  the  version  of  Yorick's  Love  in  which 
Barrett  often  appeared  was  made  for  him  by 
Ho  wells  from  Un  Drama  Nuevo  by  Estebanez. 
Happily  thereafter  Howells  gratified  his  instinct 
for  play-writing  in  the  creation  of  his  inimitable 
farces,  although  an  excellent  specimen,  The  Parlor 
Car  (1876),  had  preceded  the  comedies.  These 
farces  he  turned  out  mostly  for  the  use  of  Messrs. 
Harper  at  Christmas  time,  to  appear  later  in  the 
"Black  and  White  Series,"  and  finally  to  be  col- 


168          William  Dean  Howells 

lected  in  books  as  delightful  as  any  from  his  pen. 
Evening  Dress  (1893)  was  reprinted  from  the 
Cosmopolitan,  being,  together  with  the  romance, 
A  Traveler  from  Altruria,  and  the  story,  A  Part 
ing  and  a  Meeting,  the  souvenir  of  its  author 's 
brief  editorial  connection  with  that  journal.  In 
1900,  four  came  from  the  Riverside  Press  at  Cam 
bridge,  namely,  Room  Forty-Five,  Bride  Roses: 
a  Scene,  The  Smoking  Car,  and  An  Indian  Giver: 
a  Comedy.  The  others  are  included  in  the  follow 
ing  list:  The  Sleeping  Car  (1883),  The  Register 
(1884),  The  Elevator  (1885),  The  Garroters 
(1886),  A  Sea-Change;  or  Love's  Stowaway:  a 
Lyricated  Farce  (1888,  Ticknor),  the  collections — 
The  Mouse-Trap  and  Other  Farces  (1889)  and 
The  Sleeping  Car  and  Other  Farces  (1890),  The 
Albany  Depot  (1892),  A  Letter  of  Introduction 
(1892),  The  Unexpected  Guests  (1893),  A  Likely 
Story  (1894),  Five  0' Clock  Tea  (1894),  A  Previ 
ous  Engagement:  Comedy  (1897),  and  Parting 
Friends  (1911).  The  presence  of  two  of  the  best 
among  the  later  ones  lends  the  miscellany,  The 
Daughter  of  the  Storage,  its  chief  distinction. 

In  some  of  these  little  farces  Howells  has  given 
us  his  most  perfect  work;  they  are  like  the 
sketches  of  travel  in  realizing  completely  the  pos 
sibilities  of  a  secondary  genre.  That  they  have 
appealed  mostly  to  amateur  actors  is  altogether 
due  to  their  genre,  for  they  are  anything  but  ama 
teurish  in  execution.  They  are  parlor  plays  par 
excellence,  and  have  been  played  privately  every 
where,  even  the  advance  sheets,  according  to  the 
testimony  of  Henry  Mills  Alden,  being  in  request 


His  Fiction:  Transcripts  of  Life  169 

before  publication.5  In  England  they  have  en 
joyed  a  somewhat  more  public  favor,  The  Mouse 
Trap  having  been  twice  played  in  London  with  an 
all-star  cast  which  included  Ellen  Terry  and  Mrs. 
Kendall.  Another  one  aroused  the  enthusiasm  of 
no  more  lenient  a  critic  than  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw, 
who  recorded  in  his  Dramatic  Opinions:  "The 
little  piece  showed,  as  might  have  been  expected, 
that  with  three  weeks '  practice  the  American  nov 
elist  could  write  the  heads  off  the  poor  bunglers  to 
whom  our  managers  generally  appeal  when  they 
want  a  small  bit  of  work  to  amuse  the  people  who 
come  at  eight/'6 

One  reason  for  Howells'  success  with  the  form 
may  be  that  the  farces  represent  him  in  a  fairly 
complete  though  evanescent  state  of  liberation 
from  his  Anglo-Saxon  heritage.  They  form,  in 
fact,  his  most  intimate  attachment  to  the  French. 
There  are  few  things  more  interesting  to  observe 
in  his  work  than  the  disappearance  of  the  senti 
mentality  of  the  long  comedies  when  the  subtle 
psychologist  goes  out  to  play,  unburdened  of  the 
necessity  of  making  a  drama,  and  content  to  treat 
manners  in  their  amusing  aspects  with  unlimited 
indulgence,  Mr.  Pattee  in  his  chapter  on  Howells 
has  attractively  and  in  some  detail  drawn  a  com 
parison  with  Richardson  which,  in  considering  the 
farces,  might  very  well  be  made  with  Richard 
son's  great  French  contemporary,  Marivaux,  in 
stead.  While  in  Howells  we  have  no  more  the 
complicate  intrigue  of  Le  Jeu  de  V Amour  et  du 

"J.  Henry  Harper,  The  House  of  Harper  (1912),  p.  320. 
•  Dramatic  Opinions,  I,  265. 


170          William  Dean  Howells 

Hasard  than  the  moral  sentiment  of  Clarissa 
Harlowe,  we  do  have  a  closer  alliance  with  the 
spirit  of  the  French  analyst.  The  delicate  psy 
chology  of  the  feminine  heart,  especially  in  its 
vain  and  ineffectual  effort  to  mask  itself  with 
words,  and  with  its  pride  in  the  suppression  of 
feelings  that  will  not  down,  is  handled  with  an 
infinitude  of  nuance.  The  motives  are  often  if 
not  prevailingly  satiric,  but  no  deep  notes  are 
struck.  Lovers  quarrel  incessantly,  their  mutual 
esteem  in  no  jeopardy.  No  passion  enters  the 
conflict,  only  moods  and  whims.  Essentially  so 
cial  and  humane,  these  pieces  leave  the  larger 
humanity  behind  for  a  space,  shut  without  draw 
ing-room  doors;  and  with  the  restricted  aim  and 
lightened  mood,  their  author  has  his  most  signal 
success  in  his  ever-obvious  desire  to  make  femi 
nine  absurdity  charming.  Their  clearest  ana 
logue  may  be  found  in  the  Proverbes  of  Alfred  de 
Musset,  the  most  gifted  nineteenth-century  expo 
nent  of  marivaudage.  Ours  are  simpler  and  more 
fully  blooded  in  theme  and  structure,  but  quite  as 
rarefied  in  psychology.  Again,  they  are  more 
realistic,  preserving  the  world  of  Boston,  never 
attaining  the  almost  Arcadian,  Watteau-like,  sum 
mer-garden  atmosphere,  much  less  the  moonlight 
fantasy  which  so  often  etherealizes  the  theatre  of 
De  Musset ;  but  the  two  are  very  like  in  preferring 
badinage  to  wit,  and  bird-like  chatter  to  conver 
sation. 

These  little  plays  vary  in  merit,  from  compara 
tively  bald  studies  in  hysteria,  like  The  Mouse 
Trap,  based  on  the  feminine  fear  of  small  rodents, 
a  theme  none  too  novel  but  seemingly  of  perennial 


His  Fiction:  Transcripts  of  Life   171 

appeal,  to  pieces  of  orient  ivory  like  The  Gar- 
roters.  Some  very  few,  like  Five  0' Clock  Tea, 
have  no  complication,  merely  events.  Some  do 
not  scorn  the  moving  accident,  A  Likely  Story  de 
riving  its  mildly  ironic  title  from  the  fact  that 
complication  and  resolution  rest  upon  an  ex 
tremely  improbable  double  accident;  but  in  gen 
eral  a  truly  farcical  complication  is  created  en 
tirely  from  character.  In  the  majority  of  cases 
we  encounter  nothing  external,  merely  ludicrous 
self-deception;  there  is  no  mouse  in  The  Mouse 
Trap,  much  less  a  footpad  in  The  Garroters.  The 
latter  piece  is,  in  fact,  an  extreme  example  of  so 
licitude  in  reducing  a  supposed  basis  in  coinci 
dence  to  pure  misunderstanding. 

The  characters  are  all  of  the  same  social  set 
and  the  dramatis  persona  fairly  constant.  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Willis  Campbell  are  omnipresent,  the 
sublimated  counterparts  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Basil 
March.  Mrs.  Campbell  is  chief  exponent  of  illogi 
cality  and  contrariety,  while  her  sister-in-law, 
Mrs.  Roberts,  specializes  in  exaggeration.  Mr. 
Campbell,  tease  and  trickster,  usually  sensible  and 
witty,  enjoying  hugely  the  predicaments  of  others, 
except  when,  as  in  A  Likely  Story,  he  is  forced  to 
be  one  of  the  dupes  himself,  ordinarily  plays  the 
norm.  Mr.  Edward  Eoberts,  his  brother-in-law, 
very  absent-minded,  candid,  honest,  and  utterly 
unresourceful,  makes  a  good  gull.  He  habitually 
serves  as  a  butt  for  the  teasing  of  Mr.  Willis,  and 
is  exhibited  best  perhaps  in  A  Letter  of  Introduc 
tion  and  The  Albany  Depot.  In  general,  the  men 
of  this  elect  circle  are  hardly  more  resourceful 
than  the  women,  though  less  noisy.  They  are 


172          William  Dean  Howells 

quite  as  helpless  in  The  Elevator,  when  the  arriv 
ing  guests  at  Mrs.  Roberts'  apartments  in  the 
Hotel  Bellingham  get  caught  between  floors, 
whereupon  there  is  much  ado,  until  the  arrival  of 
Mr.  Willis  Campbell,  who  suggests  that  since  the 
elevator  will  not  go  up  they  start  it  down  and 
walk  up. 

The  long  "lyricated"  farce,  A  Sea-Change;  or 
Love's  Stowaway,  is  unique  among  Howells' 
plays,  a  sustained  extravaganza  somewhat  in  the 
style  of  the  Gilbert-Sullivan  operettas.  It  is  bur 
lesque  in  tone  rather  than  farcical,  and  never  vio 
lates  its  tone,  making  one  of  his  merriest  efforts 
to  woo  the  laughing  muse.  The  verse  is  quite  Gil- 
bertian,  and  the  best  in  rhythmic  quality  that  he 
ever  did.  The  vers  libre  of  the  recitatives  betrays 
a  facility  in  the  handling  of  free  meters  never  to 
be  suspected  from  his  more  pretentious  poetry. 

Howells  took  the  drama  with  less  seriousness 
than  any  other  form.  In  their  artistic  serious 
ness,  however,  the  farces  are  at  one  with  the 
novels ;  and  the  fact  that  the  latter  abound  in  pro 
tracted  comic  situations  or  pathetic  situations  that 
can  be  turned  over  with  their  comic  side  upper 
most,  makes  the  similarity  appear  greater  than  it 
really  is.  Turning  back  to  his  third  novel,  A 
Foregone  Conclusion  (1875),  we  shall  see  that  he 
could  very  successfully  employ  the  ordinary  ma 
terials  of  pathos,  but  in  his  fifth,  The  Lady  of  the 
Aroo&ook  (1879),  he  returned  to  the  style  and 
problem  of  A  Chance  Acquaintance  in  lighter 
mood  than  ever. 

A  Foregone  Conclusion  is  the  first  novelistic 
fruit  of  his  Venetian  consulate,  and  represents 


His  Fiction:  Transcripts  of  Life  173 

him  in  his  initial  attempt  fully  to  realize  the  form, 
to  touch  deep  springs  of  character,  to  give  certain 
direction  to  dramatic  forces,  and  to  build  as  the 
architect  builds.  The  result  is  a  structure  less 
like  those  Spanish  tales  of  the  picaresque  which 
he  was  fond  of  holding  up  as  models  than  he  was 
again  to  attain  for  many  years.  To  this  end  the 
descriptive  element  is  subordinated  and  finely  in 
tegrated,  fulfilling  only  its  noblest  function  of  fix 
ing  and  enriching  the  human  scene.  Except  in  a 
few  passages,  where  he  looses  his  hand,  notably  a 
lavish  picture  of  Casa  Vervain,  the  residence  of 
his  heroine,  and  a  gorgeously  colored  description 
of  a  Corpus  Christi  procession,  his  purpose  has 
been  by  discreet  touches  to  give  the  sense  of 
Venice  by  sunlight  or  candle-light.  "  Little  mira 
cles  of  observation, ' '  he  has  somewhere  called 
them,  which  lend  a  salient  touch  of  odor,  sound, 
or  color — the  creak  of  an  oar,  or  the  breathing  of 
the  gondoliers.  In  clear  characterization  and  ar 
tistic  plotting  it  is  the  first  of  his  books  to  suggest 
TurgenieVr*  This  it  does  not  merely  in  method, 
but  to  a  certain  degree  in  substance.  Don  Ippo- 
lito,  for  example,  who  as  a  matter  of  fact  was 
drawn  from  life,  his  original  being  the  priest  with 
whom  Howells  read  Dante,  seems  to  have  taken 
over  something  from  the  type  of  idealist  who, 
with  his  fertile  brain,  and  his  vague  but  irrepres 
sible  longings,  unpacks  his  heart  with  words 
through  so  many  Eussian  novels.  Although 
marred  by  a  prolonged  and  tawdry  ending,  A 
Foregone  Conclusion  is  altogether  a  more  pro 
found  and  moving  book,  as  well  as  a  more  shapely, 
than  either  of  the  antecedent  ones. 


174          William  Dean  Howells 

Don  Ippolito,  strange,  pathetic,  and  sinister  fig 
ure  of  a  priest  fallen  from  the  arms  of  the  Church 
in  that  place  and  that  day  when  a  priest  found  his 
only  refuge,  his  only  consolation  in  the  Church, 
defies  characterization  in  a  word.  Ferris,  the 
United  States  consul,  calls  him  a  universal  genius, 
another  Da  Vinci,  yet  is  ever  appalled  by  his 
childlike  ignorance  of  the  world.  The  pathos  lies 
in  his  ignorance  of  the  fact  that  the  double  life 
under  which  he  chafes  bars  him  effectively  from 
what  he  most  needs — love  and  sympathy.  Ferris, 
from  whom  we  learn  most  of  what  we  know  about 
him,  surmises  this  but  hardly  realizes  it.  Don 
Ippolito  longs  for  America,  the  inventor's  Utopia, 
as  artists  long  for  Italy,  and  the  circumstance  of 
Civil  War  in  America  gives  him  an  opportunity  to 
approach  Ferris  with  an  ingenious  model  of  can 
non  for  use  by  the  Union  army.  The  acquaint 
anceship  leads  to  his  engagement  by  an  American 
lady,  Mrs.  Vervain,  as  Italian  teacher  to  her 
daughter,  Florida,  Mrs.  Vervain  being  led  to  be 
lieve  that  she  has  thus  put  an  end  to  the  annoy 
ance  suffered  in  the  past  of  having  tutors  turn 
lovers.  All  things  conspire  to  make  the  dawn  of 
love  in  the  poor  priest's  heart  inevitable,  if  ever 
love  dawned  inevitably.  Howells  seldom  handled 
a  more  complex  situation,  or  one  more  serious  for 
the  persons  involved,  or  one  depending  so  little 
upon  the  conventions.  The*  inexorably  delicate 
predicament  of  Ferris  in  finding  himself  in  love 
after  being  bound  by  Don  Ippolito 's  confidence, 
is,  on  the  other  hand,  the  typical  situation  for 
Howells  lovers,  being  brought  about  by  his  own 
obtuseness  and  prolonged  by  his  unresoureeful- 


His  Fiction:  Transcripts  of  Life  175 

ness.  The  author's  success  with  the  tragedy  of 
the  priest  is  the  more  remarkable  in  that  he  con 
sistently  subordinates  him  to  the  hero,  and  pre 
fers  to  view  him  through  the  eyes  of  the  other 
parties  to  the  complication.  This  does  not  seem 
to  spoil  Don  Ippolito,  although  it  does  contribute 
to  the  mystery  that  shrouds  him  to  the  end.  Like 
Florida,  he  has  his  dossier,  while  Ferris  is  more 
or  less  an  improvisation. 

Florida  is  a  made  character,  but  beautifully  and 
strongly  made.  She  is  studied  by  the  method  of 
contradictory  traits.  A  certain  hauteur,  not  to 
say  arrogance,  of  her  nature,  for  example,  drives 
her  to  an  excessive  humility  in  her  devotion  to  her 
mother,  and  later,  we  are  told,  to  her  children. 
Her  fiery  temper,  a  bequest,  along  with  her  tropi 
cal  name,  from  her  father,  the  late  Colonel  Ver 
vain,  seeks  compensation  in  effusive  remorse.  She 
is  strikingly  contrasted  with  her  mother,  who  is 
of  the  fragile,  frank,  and  impulsive  type,  but  who 
has,  nevertheless,  a  charm  which  on  two  or  three 
occasions  frustrates  her  author  in  a  seeming  de 
sire  to  hold  her  up  to  ridicule.  Florida's  intense 
reserve  is  a  chill  wall  against  the  brusqueries  of 
Ferris,  especially  when  directed  against  her 
mother.  She  is  a  ritualist  in  religion,  but  almost 
fierce  in  her  scorn  of  hypocrisy  and  in  her  devo 
tion  to  truth,  which  triples  the  barrier  in  the  way 
of  her  understanding  the  priestly  lover.  The  re 
action  of  these  two  disparate  and  complex  natures 
upon  each  other  is  the  arresting  feature  of  the 
novel.  Unwittingly  she  touches  the  most  danger 
ous  chords,  bringing  him  finally  to  the  declaration 
that  overwhelms  her  with  horror.  It  is  impossi- 


176          William  Dean  Howells 

ble  that  she  should  not  bruise  him  cruelly,  but  a 
flood  of  comprehension  and  remorse  compels  her 
at  the  parting  moment  to  fling  her  arms  about  his 
neck  in  a  pitying  embrace. 

A  Foregone  Conclusion,  although  different  from 
most  of  Howells'  novels,  more  Continental  in 
theme  and  handling,  is  true  to  type  in  its  elaborate 
faithfulness  to  a  background  and  to  characters 
thoroughly  known  to  him.  The  life  of  Ferris, 
while  not  autobiographical,  reflects  perfectly  the 
spirit  of  the  life  he  must  have  led  as  Consul  to 
Venice,  with  an  air  almost  of  self -consciousness  in 
the  change  of  avocation  from  literature  to  paint 
ing.  In  his  next  novel,  Private  Theatricals,  which 
appeared  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  from  November, 
1875,  to  May,  1876,  he  seems  to  have  overstepped 
the  bounds  of  propriety  in  this  regard,  for  the 
book,  which  appeared  in  Edinburgh,  was  sup 
pressed.  Mr.  Pattee  guessed  the  reason,  and  a 
writer  for  the  Bookman,  who  signs  himself 
"Bicus,"  claims  to  have  first-hand  information 
that  the  inhabitants  of  the  little  mountain  resort 
where  the  scene  is  laid,  furious  at  the  portraits  of 
themselves  which  they  found  between  the  covers 
of  the  Atlantic,  threatened  Howells  with  the 
law. 7  Parenthetically,  it  may  interest  biblio 
philes  to  know  that  the  suppression  of  Niagara 
Revisited  (1884)  was  for  a  different  reason,  al 
though  the  same  might  be  surmised.  The  truth  is, 
however,  that  that  pamphlet  was  in  its  original 
form  written  and  printed  as  railroad  advertising 
matter,  and  the  difficulties  which  led  to  the  de- 

1 "  A  Suppressed  Novel  of  Mr.  Howells ' '  in  the  Bookman 
(1910),  32:201. 


His  Fiction:  Transcripts  of  Life  177 

struction  of  the  edition  were  pecuniary.  Private 
Theatricals  has  posthumously  (1921)  been  added 
to  the  list  of  Howells  '  works  as  Mrs.  Farrell,  and 
happily  so,  containing  as  it  does  his  only  full 
length  portrait  of  a  true  flirt.  Its  problem 
is  the  delicate  one  of  the  misery  left  in  the 
trail  of  a  heartless  coquette,  and  it  is  premoni 
tory  of  the  reversion  from  the  style  of  A  Fore 
gone  Conclusion  to  the  earlier  manner  of  A 
Chance  Acquaintance — a  reversion  brought  fully 
to  pass  in  The  Lady  of  the  Aroostook  (1879). 
It  is  still  true  in  a  sense  that  A  Foregone  Conclu 
sion  inaugurates  a  second  period  in  his  work,  just 
as  there  is  a  certain  justification  for  dating  a  third 
from  A  Hazard  of  New  Fortunes  (1889),  but 
these  "  periods "  are  very  scornful  of  chronology, 
and  The  Lady  of  the  Aroostook,  except  that  it  is 
an  "  international "  novel  and  makes  audible  the 
"  conscience "  motif,  carries  on  the  spirit  and  tra 
dition  of  Their  Wedding  Journey  and  A  Chance 
Acquaintance.  Like  the  latter,  it  is  aimed  directly 
at  Boston. 

The  Lady  of  the  Aroostook  seems  to  me  to  enjoy 
a  reputation  somewhat  beyond  its  deserving.  It 
is  pronounced  by  Harry  Thurston  Peck  ' '  the  most 
perfect  story  that  American  literature  has  yet 
produced, ' ' 8  and  is  constantly  cited  in  private 
conversation  as  the  most  characteristic  of  all 
Howells '  productions.  It  is  a  story  whose  pecu 
liar  charm  makes  even  the  slightest  detraction 
appear  mean  and  ungrateful,  but  this  is  surely 
to  make  it  shine  at  the  expense  of  many  of  How- 
ells'  nobler  works.  Its  heroine,  Lydia  Blood,  is  a 

9  The  Personal  Equation  (1898),  p.  26. 


178          William  Dean  Howells 

New  England  edition  of  Kitty  Ellison,  rather  than 
"a  second  Marcia  Hubbard,  but  with  finer  traits/' 
as  Harry  Thurston  Peck  has  it,  displaying  among 
other  local  attributes  the  New  England  conscience, 
a  malady  destined  direly  to  afflict  some  of  How- 
ells'  later  creations.  Her  function  is  identical 
with  Kitty's,  to  represent  the  true  gentility  of  de 
mocracy  as  opposed  to  the  snobbery  of  a  super 
ficially  Europeanized  society.  The  sharpest  shot 
'  is  delivered  in  having  her  originality  and  her  fine 
instincts  appreciated  in  a  society  with  more  con 
ventions  than  it  could  possibly  know  what  to  do 
with.  This  is  typical  of  Howells'  handling  of  the 
so-called  international  situation,  which  differs 
from  that  of  Henry  James  in  conceiving  the  situa 
tion  in  its  dramatic  rather  than  in  its  critical  as 
pect.  That  is  to  say,  he  is  concerned  with  mutual 
reactions;  and  so  far  from  seeing  in  the  conven 
tions  of  a  stable  social  organization  something 
sacred,  fixed,  and  immutable,  he  is  impressed  by 
the  fact  that  Europeans  themselves  do  not  regard 
them  so.  And  if  some  of  his  heroines  do  redound 
rather  too  much  to  the  credit  of  America,  they  are 
at  least  as  true  as  Daisy  Miller. 

He  here  seeks  to  have  Lydia  Blood  prove  herself 
a  "lady"  in  a  situation  so  unladylike  as  to  har 
row  up  the  souls  of  Anglicized  Bostonians.  Ac 
cordingly,  he  gets  her,  after  it  has  been  arranged 
that  she  shall  be  sent  to  her  aunt  in  Venice,  aboard 
the  freighter  Aroostook,  where  it  is  discovered 
that  she  is  the  only  woman  on  board,  and  is  mak 
ing  the  voyage  with  three  men  passengers,  not  to 
speak  of  the  crew.  It  must  be  confessed  that  the 
situation  is  shorn  somewhat  of  its  horror  by  the 


His  Fiction:  Transcripts  of  Life  179 

previous  introduction  of  Lydia's  protector,  the 
fatherly  Captain  Jenness,  an  incarnation  of  bluff 
courtesy,  kindness,  and  loyalty,  who  has  an  old 
sea-dog's  habit  of  saying  grace  at  meals;  but  if 
we  are  to  judge  by  the  conduct  of  the  two  "  gentle 
men,  "  Mr.  Stamford  and  Mr.  Dunham,  the  thing 
is  passing  bold.  These  exquisites  are  many  days 
out  before  they  recover  from  the  shock.  They 
give  the  matter  a  most  exhaustive  analysis,  debat 
ing  ways  and  means  of  keeping  their  fair  fellow- 
passenger  unconscious  of  the  anomaly  of  her  po 
sition,  no  very  difficult  matter  it  seems,  and  ut 
terly  unable  to  do  the  one  possible  thing — accept 
the  situation. 

The  story  falls  into  three  parts,  geographical  as 
well  as  structural:  the  New  England  village  of 
Lydia's  origin,  which  is  inimitably  done ;  the  voy 
age,  which  will  at  length  become  dull  to  those  of 
limited  liking  for  the  conversation  in  gramaphonic 
record  of  Messrs.  Stanif ord  and  Dunham ;  and  the 
international  events  at  Trieste  and  Venice,  which 
ought  briskly  to  refresh  the  weary.  Messrs. 
Stanif  ord  and  Dunham  indeed  outshine  all  others 
of  the  Howells  "gentlemen"  in  their  capacity  for 
protracted  and  cattish  gossip.  Their  effeminate 
interest  in  Lydia's  gowns  and  their  perturbation 
over  the  mild  provincialism  of  her  speech  are  end 
less.  The  book  ought  always  to  live  by  virtue  of 
its  truly  monumental  study  of  South  Bradfield, 
to  which  there  is  a  happy  reversion  at  the  end. 
We  are  given  not  merely  a  wealth  of  factual  de 
tail  concerning  existence  among  the  New  England 
villagers — their  habits  of  thought,  their  peculiar 
intonations  in  speech,  and  minutiae  such  as  their 


180          William  Dean  Howells 

preference  of  Japan  to  China  tea — but  pictorial 
embodiments  that  defy  obliteration.  The  parlor 
lamp  of  pea-green  glass  and  red  woollen  wick  that 
sheds  its  radiance  from  Miss  Maria's  centre-table 
has  a  value  that  is  unforgettable.  The  wisest 
words  uttered  by  Harry  Thurston  Peck,  the  most 
enthusiastic  commentator  on  this  novel,  are  his 
cry  of  wonder  and  delight  at  that  lamp,  which 
"  alone  is  sufficient  claim  to  immortality,  for  its 
glow,  somehow  or  other,  makes  the  whole  lif  e  and 
aspect  of  South  Bradfield  perceptible  at  a 
glance.  "9 

Howells '  intolerance  in  his  criticism  of  anything 
remotely  resembling  traditional  machinery  in  the 
conduct  of  a  story,  justifies  one,  I  think,  in  being 
rigorously  critical  of  his  own  work  in  this  regard. 
He  has  even  cast  a  reflection  upon  the  impeccable 
Jane,  apropos  of  Louisa  Musgrove's  jumping 
from  the  sea-wall  at  Lyme  Regis  in  Persuasion. 
So  I  am  emboldened  to  say  that  I  find  the  devices 
of  The  Lady  of  the  Aroostook  rather  " obvious, " 
in  particular,  the  rescue  of  Hicks.  Howells  has 
elsewhere  in  his  novels  as  well  as  in  his  criticism 
been  at  great  pains  to  demonstrate  the  futility  of 
trying  to  redeem  a  hero  by  making  him  take  part 
in  a  rescue  or  other  heroic  exploit.  That  can  be 
done  only  by  making  the  nobility  inherent  in  his 
character.  Yet  the  knights-errant  of  Sir  Walter, 
imbued  as  they  are  with  the  ideals  of  a  vanished 
chivalry,  do  not  commonly  participate  in  adven 
turous  episodes  more  unconvincing  than  that  in 
which  he  seeks  to  redeem  Stamford.  The  letter 
device,  also,  could  easily  be  strengthened  if  not 

9  The  Personal  Equation   (1898),  p.  28. 


His  Fiction:  Transcripts  of  Life   181 

removed  from  the  category  of  accident,  say  by 
having  the  porter  steal  it  for  the  stamps,  after  a 
manner  far  from  rare  among  the  race  of  hotel  por 
ters.  Howells  was  either  uncommonly  fortunate 
or  uncommonly  wise  in  that  his  Italian  experience 
did  not  dictate  such  an  enhancement  to  the  realism 
of  his  study.  Then  there  is  the  heart-easing  chap 
ter  descriptive  of  the  wedding,  which  appears  to 
be  a  conventional  falling-off  from  the  high  cour 
age  displayed  in  A  Chance  Acquaintance;  but  it 
must  be  conceded  that  Staniford  is  by  no  means 
so  impossible  a  match  as  Mr.  Arbuton.  The 
Aroostook  is  conveniently  laid  up  for  repairs  in 
order  that  Captain  Jenness  may  attend  the  cere 
mony,  and  that  his  cheery  prophecy  of  happiness 
may  fortify  the  reader  against  the  speculations  of 
more  discerning  friends. 

The  Undiscovered  Country  (1880),  reminiscent 
of  The  Blithedale  Romance,  in  which  Howells  un 
der  the  influence  of  Hawthorne  falls  into  a  mild 
and  pretty  strain  of  symbolism  of  a  kind  that  he 
is  wont  studiously  to  avoid,  brings  to  mind  his 
curious  critical  judgment  expressing  no  uncertain 
preference  for  that  one  among  all  Hawthorne's 
novels.  I  am  not  sure  that  when  he  came  to  write 
Heroines  of  Fiction  it  lay  at  all  heavily  upon  his 
mind  to  justify  that  odd  preference ;  but  I  do  feel 
that  the  reader  of  those  causeries  must  agree  with 
me  that  they  unwittingly  exhibit  the  greatness  of 
The  Scarlet  Letter.  His  exaggerated  antipathy  to 
symbolism  explains  his  coldness  toward  The  Mar 
ble  Faun;  and  it  is  not  difficult  to  understand  why 
he  should  like  least  of  all  The  House  of  the  Seven 
Gables,  hovering  as  it  does  between  heaven  and 


182          William  Dean  Howells 

earth.  Yet  his  dismissal  of  the  latter  book  one 
might  not  be  prepared  for,  since,  not  to  mention 
the  fact  that  Hawthorne  has  scarcely  equalled  its 
minute  photography  elsewhere,  the  symbolism  is 
more  firmly  integrated  than  in  The  Marble  Faun; 
that  is,  there  is  little  so  completely  externalized  as 
the  faun's  ears  and  Hilda's  doves.  But  perhaps 
that  is  the  very  reason:  the  symbolism  of  The 
House  of  the  Seven  Gables  simply  cannot  be 
evaded. 

There  are  fancies  in  Howells'  earlier  books, 
it  is  true,  which  indicate  a  capacity  for  such  indul 
gence  as  we  find  here.  There  is,  for  example,  a 
rose  in  A  Chance  Acquaintance  which  one  expects 
momently  to  become  a  symbolic  rose ;  and  on  the 
gray  morning  that  closes  Kitty's  love  drama  the 
heavens  are  made  to  weep  a  fine  autumnal  rain  in 
the  garden  of  the  Ursalines.  More  striking  than 
anything  elsewhere  to  be  found,  however,  is  the 
symbolic  value  which  the  dullest  reader  must  at 
tach  to  the  inventions  of  the  Venetian  priest,  Don 
Ippolito,  in  A  Foregone  Conclusion,  foreshadow 
ing  as  they  do  the  final  strife  after  the  impossible 
which  is  to  bring  his  tragic  life  to  its  close.  The 
episode  of  his  repairing  the  fountain  may  even  be 
said  to  have  no  other  than  a  symbolic  value. 

In  the  present  story,  the  spiritualist,  Dr.  Boyn- 
ton,  and  his  daughter,  Egeria,  have  found  refuge 
in  a  community  of  Shakers.  Egeria,  her  nerves 
shattered  by  her  experiences  as  her  father's  me 
dium,  succumbs  to  the  rigors  of  the  journey,  a 
journey  made  very  rigorous  indeed  by  her  fa 
ther's  utter  helplessness  in  the  world  of  railroads, 
and  falls  ill  with  a  fever.  Old  Boynton,  who  has 


His  Fiction:  Transcripts  of  Life   183 

dedicated  his  child  to  the  study  of  truth,  and  ex 
plains,  '  '  I  have  seen  her  change  from  a  creature  of 
robust,  terrestrial  tendencies  to  a  being  of  moods 
almost  as  ethereal  as  those  of  the  spirits  with 
which  it  has  been  my  struggle  to  associate  her," 
awaits  her  return  to  health,  eager  to  resume  ex 
periments  in  his  present  favorable  surroundings, 
free  from  the  atmosphere  of  mercenary,  profes 
sional  mediumism.  But  as  spring  advances  his 
hitherto  faithful  subject  takes  an  earthy  joy  in 
the  rich  vitality  of  the  season.  The  full  tide  of 
youth,  so  long  repressed  by  her  sense  of  duty  to 
her  father,  comes  surging  back,  and  carries  her 
beyond  his  influence.  The  exquisite  complement 
to  the  episode  is  the  autumnal  decline  of  the  old 
man,  who  never  recovers  from  the  blow.  "  'You 
see/  he  said,  'how  they  have  tricked  out  my  room 
for  me?'  and  he  indicated  the  boughs  of  colored 
leaves,  varied  with  bunches  of  wild  asters  and  tops 
of  golden-rod,  in  which  the  Shakers  had  carried 
him  the  autumn.  *  There  isn't  any  healing  in  my 
leaves,  as  there  was  in  the  flowers  which  they 
brought  Egeria  this  spring/  he  added,  with  a 
slight  sigh,  'but  there  is  sympathy — sympa 
thy.'  "10 

This  book  has  three  important  bearings  upon 
its  author 's  development  as  a  novelist :  it  consti 
tutes  his  first  extended  study  in  religious  sectari 
anism,  a  subject  of  great  interest  to  him;  it  in 
augurates  his  delvings  into  the  occult ;  and  it  rep 
resents  the  apotheosis  of  the  Howells  love  story. 
Ford,  the  lover  of  Egeria,  creates  his  story  out  of 
his  own  sheer  stupidity,  making  a  rival  of  the  in- 

MThe  Undiscovered  Country  (1908),  p.  316. 


184          William  Dean  Howells 

nocent  Hatch,  who  is  guilty  of  nothing  worse  than 
a  more  effectual  kindness  to  the  Boyntons  than 
his,  a  most  unconvincing  hallucination  that  per 
sists  until  the  actual  engagement  of  Hatch  to  an 
other  is  announced.  While  the  most  excessive 
thing  of  its  kind  that  Howells  has  given  us,  it  is 
readily  forgiven  on  account  of  the  finishing  touch 
which  it  lends  to  the  figure  of  Sister  Frances. 

In  Sister  Frances,  the  most  exquisite  vignette 
that  ever  adorned  a  novel,  Howells  has  managed 
to  say  more  beautifully  and  with  finer  articula 
tion  than  he  has  elsewhere  said  it,  all  that  any  one 
could  say  from  the  standpoint  of  simple  and 
e very-day  humanity,  upon  the  subject  of  celibacy 
in  religious  sects  and  orders.  And  by  inheritance 
and  by  virtue  of  early  training  in  tolerance  of  ec 
centric  sectarianism  and  sympathy  with  it,  he  is 
eminently  qualified  to  pass  judgment  upon  it.  In 
The  Day  of  Their  Wedding  (1896),  he  has  given 
the  comedy  of  the  matter,  in  a  lively  chronicle  of 
the  adventures  of  Althea  Brown  and  Lorenzo 
Weaver,  who  attempt  to  give  up  the  "angelic 
life"  for  the  earthly  order. 

The  volume  in  hand  records  his  first  skirmish 
ing  on  the  frontier  of  the  undiscovered  country,  a 
frontier  which,  needless  to  say,  remains  unpene- 
trated  in  the  novel  of  realism.  Howells '  enthusi 
asm  was  enlisted  rather  by  the  psychological  prob 
lems  involved;  his  interest  lay  in  the  effects  in 
duced  in  the  minds  of  investigators  of  supernor 
mal  phenomena,  not  so  much  in  the  phenomena 
themselves.  This  being  the  case,  it  is  not  strictly 
true  to  say  that  as  the  years  rolled  on  he  became 
more  and  more  skeptical  with  regard  to  them. 


His  Fiction:  Transcripts  of  Life  185 

What  clearly  happened  was  that  he  studied  their 
reaction  upon  more  and  more  sophisticated  ob 
servers.  The  personnel  of  The  Undiscovered 
Country  is  worlds  apart  from  the  intellectually 
veneered  circle  of  Between  the  Dark  and  the  Day 
light.  No  greater  disparity  can  be  imagined  than 
that  between  the  boundless  faith  of  the  visionary 
whose  portrait  is  drawn  at  full  length  in  The  Un 
discovered  Country,  and  the  chill  worldliness  of 
the  little  club  of  skeptics  whose  proceedings  are 
sketched  in  the  short  stories.  This  fact  invites  a 
suspension  of  judgment  on  the  question  of  How- 
ells'  personal  beliefs;  but  it  does  give  a  unique 
value  to  Dr.  Boynton  among  this  class  of  his  char 
acters. 

Dr.  Boynton  is  a  country  physician  who  has  lost 
friends  and  practice  in  his  blind  and  passionate 
devotion  to  the  occult.  Sympathy,  the  sympathy 
of  understanding,  is  the  motive  for  his  portrayal ; 
his  creator  abstains  cautiously  from  idealizing 
him.  No  attempt  is  made  to  repress  the  ironic 
humor  or  to  gloss  the  unlovely  aspects  which  must 
of  necessity  manifest  themselves  when  a  mortal 
makes  the  hope  of  immortality  the  sole  concern 
of  his  earthly  existence.  He  becomes  capable  of 
reproaching  himself  for  having  in  attending  an 
injured  child  neglected  the  larger  duty  to  the  race. 
A  clever  stroke  is  that  which  makes  him  take  the 
hat  of  a  gentleman  who  is  in  seance  for  the  recov 
ery  of  lost  property.  He  is  sublimely  impatient 
of  all  opposition  to  his  theories,  indulging  in  out 
bursts  of  flamboyant  rhetoric,  swiftly  to  be  suc 
ceeded  by  moods  of  childlike  repentance  and  rec 
onciliation,  as  soon  as  a  new  theory  is  evolved  in 


i86          William  Dean  Howells 

his  poor  busy  brain.  His  is  not  withal  a  simple 
type  of  visionary ;  he  is  actually  endowed  not  only 
with  the  race  conscience  but  with  a  certain  scien 
tific  attitude  of  mind,  however  amusing  his  claims 
to  its  possession  may  sound;  and  there  is  a  pa 
thetic  inevitability  in  his  construction  of  a  new 
hypothesis  out  of  the  debris  of  his  former  theories 
—that  spiritualism  is  not  spiritualism  at  all,  but 
"a  grosser  materialism  than  that  which  denies;  a 
materialism  that  asserts  and  affirms,  and  appeals 
for  proof  to  purely  physical  phenomena. " 1  1 
Finally,  it  is  a  true  psychology  that  shows  the 
vigor  of  his  speculative  power  triumphant  over 
the  ruin  of  his  life 's  hope,  and  permits  him  to  die 
in  "an  enthusiasm  for  death." 

This  striking  and  pathetic  figure,  Howells'  sec 
ond  venture  with  a  bold  and  unusual  type,  exalts 
his  study,  making  it  in  the  fullest  sense  a  docu 
ment  in  human  character,  not  a  mere  expose.  It 
has,  however,  the  latter  nature  as  well:  by  way 
of  glaring  contrast  to  the  presence  of  Dr.  Boyn- 
ton  and  Egeria,  and  in  order  to  reinforce  the 
idyllic  value  of  the  life  depicted  among  the  Shak 
ers,  it  opens  sordidly  enough,  plunging  us  at  once 
into  the  depths  of  mediumistic  Boston,  the  Boston 
of  Henry  James'  Bostonians.  In  this  portion  of 
the  story  we  scent  the  note-book  a  trifle  more  de 
cidedly  than  in  the  depictions  of  Shaker  life,  but 
the  re-creation  is  not  less  masterly.  Its  somewhat 
Zolaistic  and  documentary  order  accrues  no  doubt 
from  the  more  deliberate  marshalling  of  types. 
Howells  has  here  been  under  necessity  of  exhibit- 

"The  Undiscovered  Country  (1908),  p.  307. 


His  Fiction:  Transcripts  of  Life  187 

ing  in  smaller  compass  a  representative  variety 
of  charlatans  and  their  habitues. 

His  interest  in  psychic  problems  did  not  wane. 
The  Shadow  of  a  Dream  (1890),  one  of  the  epi 
sodes  which  entangle  our  friends  the  Marches, 
must  be  mentioned  because  it  pursues  the  matter 
of  dreams  over  onto  the  borderland  of  the  specu 
lative,  although  it  has  next  to  no  value  as  a  study 
of  such  a  problem,  being  primarily  concerned  with 
morbid  psychology.  The  crucial  matter  of  divina 
tion  is  needlessly  evaded.  It  is  a  pale  and  melan 
choly  book,  unrelieved  by  the  light  of  normal  in 
telligences,  a  light  which  the  Marches  should  fur 
nish,  but  which  they  do  not.  The  subject  himself 
seems  no  more  sick  of  soul  than  all  those  who  live 
after  him  in  the  shadow  of  his  dream.  In  The 
Landlord  at  Lion's  Head  (1897),  spiritism  ap 
pears  purely  as  a  realistic  accessory,  proposing  no 
problem,  in  the  operations  of  Jackson  Durgin  and 
Whitwell  with  the  planchette.  Howells '  late  man 
ner  of  treating  the  supernormal  may  be  studied 
first  in  the  three  tales  comprising  the  volume 
Questionable  Shapes  (1903) — questionable,  it 
should  be  understood,  in  the  modern,  not  in  the 
Shakespearian  sense  suggested  by  the  title.  They 
indicate  a  familiarity  with  the  Proceedings  of  the 
Society  for  Psychical  Eesearch.  The  sophisti 
cated,  not  to  say  cynical,  atmosphere  into  which 
we  now  emerge  is  by  comparison  with  The  Shadow 
of  a  Dream,  altogether  gay. 

It  is  this  lightened  atmosphere  that  enables  him 
in  the  first  story  of  the  volume  to  defy  the  dictum 
of  ghost-tellers  time  out  of  mind  that  love  interest 


i88          William  Dean  Howells 

will  not  consort  with  the  ghostly  mood.  What  he 
has  really  given  us  is  not  a  weird  tale  but  a  maga 
zine  comedy  in  His  Apparition — apparition  being 
the  scientific  term  for  ghost,  cleverly  evasive  of 
the  old  but  ever-thrilling  connotation.  The  two 
others  are  serious  studies.  The  Angel  of  the 
Lord  deals  with  what  is  known  to  morbid  psy 
chology  as  "personification."  The  hero,  haunted 
by  a  consciousness  of  mortality,  secludes  himself 
in  his  country  home,  where  he  revels  in  the  Eng 
lish  poets  of  the  grave,  his  obsession  being  finally 
personified  in  the  likeness  of  an  angel  of  the  Lord, 
come  to  deliver  him.  Though  One  Rose  from  the 
Dead,  a  study  of  telepathy  and  telepathic  commu 
nication  after  death,  is  the  most  interesting  of  the 
group.  We  shall  have  occasion  to  refer  to  it 
again,  since  it  relates  to  the  stories  of  the  normal 
through  its  peculiar  doctrine  of  love. 

In  the  volume  Between  the  Dark  and  the  Day 
light  (1907)  are  selected  a  number  of  later  stories 
dealing  with  abnormal  phases  of  consciousness. 
A  Sleep  and  a  Forgetting  ingeniously  gives  a 
speculative  turn  to  the  trite  theme  of  suspension 
of  memory.  "I  was  wondering, "  says  Lanfear, 
"whether  in  some  other  possible  life  our  con 
sciousness  would  not  be  more  independent  of  what 
we  have  been  than  it  seems  to  be  here.  I  mean 
whether  there  shall  not  be  something  absolute  in 
our  existence,  whether  it  shall  not  realize  itself 
more  in  each  experience  of  the  moment,  and  not 
be  always  seeking  to  verify  itself  from  the  past." 
The  Eidolons  of  Brooks  Alford  builds  a  pretty 
romance  of  the  magazine  variety  upon  the  psycho- 
physical  phenomenon  suggested  by  its  title,  by 


His  Fiction:  Transcripts  of  Life  189 

which  images  present  in  the  mind  of  the  hero  are 
externated  in  his  physical  vision.  A  Memory 
that  Worked  Overtime  is  likewise  suggested  hy  its 
title,  a  humorous  episode  quite  possibly  indebted 
to  the  research  of  the  late  Hugo  Mimsterberg. 
A  Case  of  Metaphantasmia  gives  a  farcical  turn 
to  the  matter  of  dream  transference,  a  subject 
richly  documented  by  the  Proceedings  of  the  So 
ciety  for  Psychical  Research,  by  having  a  night 
mare  communicated  to  a  sleeping-car  full  of  pas 
sengers. 

These  interesting  adventures  in  the  psychical 
were  delayed  by  Howells'  absorption  in  the  more 
pragmatic  problem  of  the  personal  conscience.  At 
the  time  of  The  Undiscovered  Country  (1880)  he 
had  already  been  fascinated  by  the  phenomenon 
known  as  the  New  England  conscience,  that  ' '  grim 
aftercrop  of  Puritanism, "  he  somewhere  calls  it, 
which  flourishes  so  long  after  blue  law  has  per 
ished.  He  had  noted  the  infection  in  The  Lady  of 
the  Aroostook  (1879),  and  continued  his  study  of 
it  in  many  later  books,  but  in  Dr.  Breen's  Prac 
tice  (1881)  he  gave  us  its  apotheosis.  Grace 
Breen  is  the  encyclopedian  creation  who  unites  in 
herself  all  the  morbid  manifestations  of  a  " hypo 
chondria  of  the  soul"  which  has  outlived  its  relig 
ious  phase  and  persists  in  the  ethical  condition. 
Grace  has  undertaken  the  medical  profession  with 
the  sole  idea  of.  service,  and  plans  to  go  to  one  of 
the  great  factory  towns,  there  to  begin  practice 
among  the  operatives.  Her  plans  are  interfered 
with  by  her  duty  to  a  private  patient,  thrust  upon 
her  in  the  person  of  an  old  school  friend,  Mrs. 
Maynard,  invalided  and  separated  from  her  hus- 


igo          William  Dean  Howells 

band  (it  is  not  difficult  to  understand  why).  She 
represents  perverse  femininity  in  the  most  vicious 
form  that  Howells  had  imagined  up  to  the  time  the 
novel  was  written.  To  this  deadly  combination  is 
added  the  nagging  of  Grace's  mother,  Mrs.  Breen. 
"She  was  an  old  lady,  who  had  once  kept  a  vigi 
lant  conscience  for  herself ;  but  after  making  her 
life  unhappy  with  it  for  some  three-score  years, 
she  now  applied  it  entirely  to  the  exasperation 
and  condemnation  of  others.  She  especially  de 
voted  it  to  fretting  a  New  England  girPs  natu 
rally  morbid  sense  of  duty  in  her  daughter,  and 
keeping  it  in  the  irritation  of  perpetual  self- 
question.  "12 

The  early  portion  of  the  book  suffers  from  a 
gloom  like  that  of  the  later  Fennel  and  Rue 
(1908),  though  by  no  means  so  implacable  in  its 
analysis  as  that  sinister  study.  It  merely  lacks  the 
fine  chiaroscuro  to  which  Howells  has  habituated 
us.  The  lighter  character  of  Mr.  Libby  is  too  in 
consequent,  lacks  the  weight  necessary  for  relief. 
He  is  the  nice  young  man  we  know  so  well.  Even 
the  first  part,  however,  is  superior  to  Fennel  and 
Rue  by  virtue  of  its  motivation  and  its  strongly 
limned  characters,  but  above  all  in  its  earthiness. 
It  is  grey  and  neutral,  but  substantial,  being  given 
a  mundane  atmosphere  through  the  modulated 
though  sombre  tones  of  beach  and  sea.  Fennel 
and  ~Rue  is  Henry  James  reduced  to  morbidity ; 
but  there  is  an  exultant  and  barbaric  note  in  Dr. 
Breen' s  Practice  which  is  Charlotte  Bronte  hav 
ing  suffered  a  sea-change. 

In  this  novel  Howells  is  reticent  with  analysis, 

MDr.  Breen' s  Practice  (1881),  p.  13. 


His  Fiction:  Transcripts  of  Life  191 

but  implacable  in  conjoining  the  forces  which 
unite  in  their  savage  energy  to  keep  this  poor  girl 
faithful  to  her  false  ideal.  If  there  were  but  a 
drop  of  human  sympathy  and  tenderness  in  the 
relation  of  Grace  and  her  patient,  if  the  sacrifice 
were  ennobled  by  a  love  which  could  sometimes 
shake  itself  free  from  the  clutch  of  duty,  if  a  spark 
of  gratitude  could  only  flame  steadily  for  a  little 
space,  it  would  not  so  wear  the  nerves.  Mrs.  May- 
nard,  however,  is  incapable  of  anything  but 
sparks;  her  metier  is  to  exhibit  feminine  whims 
and  vagaries.  The  peevishness  of  the  patient,  the 
withered  conscience  of  the  mother,  the  live  and 
quivering  conscience  of  Grace,  stirred  to  re 
doubled  action  by  the  force  of  advanced  ideas,  all 
form  a  manifold  that  fairly  grills  the  nerves.  At 
last,  like  a  shaft  of  sunlight,  enters  Dr.  Mulbridge 
with  his  brutal  declaration:  "I'm  not  a  doctor  of 
divinity. ' '  He  laughs  her  conscience  to  scorn,  but 
counts  upon  it  to  win  him  her  hand,  knowing  that 
she  cannot  fulfill  her  life's  plan  alone.  In  the 
supreme  struggle,  however,  love  conquers  duty. 
The  conspiring  forces  overreach  themselves,  and 
the  girl,  in  an  intoxication  of  freedom,  not  only 
gives  herself  to  the  man  she  loves,  but  plans  to  go 
to  Boston  for  a  season  of  opera.  But,  alas,  this 
orgy  consummated,  and  the  supreme  aesthetic  dis 
sipation  of  a  trip  to  Italy  realized,  she  is  a  Puri 
tan  still,  and  her  husband  mercifully  finds  a  way 
for  her  to  turn  her  professional  training  to  ac 
count  in  the  service  of  his  operatives'  children. 
"At  the  end  of  the  ends,"  comments  her  author, 
"she  was  a  Puritan;  belated,  misdated,  if  the 
reader  will,  and  cast  upon  good  works  for  the 


192          William  Dean  Ho  wells 

consolation  which  the  Puritans  formerly  found  in 
a  creed.  Riches  and  ease  were  sinful  to  her,  and 
somehow  to  be  atoned  for;  and  she  had  no  real 
love  for  anything  that  was  not  of  an  immediate 
humane  and  spiritual  effect/' 13 

The  consensus  of  reviewers  finds  in  Dr.  Breen's 
Practice  an  anti-feminist  document,  on  account 
of  its  heroine's  failure  in  a  profession  at  a  time 
when  women  were  beginning  to  enter  the  profes 
sions.  There  is  more  evidence  for  regarding  it  as 
a  satire  on  the  medical  profession  in  general. 
Likewise,  An  Imperative  Duty  (1891)  was  re 
ceived  as  a  discussion  of  the  race  problem,  because 
its  heroine,  whose  grandmother  was  a  negress, 
marries  a  white  man.  It  would  be  difficult  to  re 
fute  any  one  who  should  insist  upon  a  polemic 
intent  in  the  earlier  novel,  but  An  Imperative 
Duty  so  clearly  discourages  such  unwarranted 
divination  that  it  may  serve  as  a  warning  applica 
ble  to  the  case  of  its  predecessor.  The  ending,  in 
which  Olney  marries  Rhoda  and  takes  her  to  Italy, 
where  she  passes  for  an  Italian,  almost  univer 
sally  pronounced  a  weak  solution,  is  transparently 
intended  to  preclude  raising  the  question  at  all. 
If  offered  as  a  solution,  the  word  weak  would  fail 
to  describe  it.  The  real  question  is  whether 
Rhoda 's  aunt,  Mrs.  Meredith,  another  exemplar 
of  the  prodigious  conscience,  is  duty  bound  to  re 
veal  a  secret  which  would  bring  tragedy  into  at 
least  two  lives.  It  is  a  more  intense  and  scathing 
dramatic  exposition  than  Dr.  Breen's  Practice  of 
how  the  "Puritan  civilization  has  carried  the  cult 
of  the  personal  conscience  into  mere  dutiola- 

" Dr.  Breen's  Practice  (1881),  p.  270. 


His  Fiction:  Transcripts  of  Life   193 

try. "  14  I  do  not  know  how  critical  obtuseness  has 
rendered  Howells  ranker  injustice  than  in  accus 
ing  him  of  dealing  flippantly  with  the  race  prob 
lem.  Omey's  joking  is  a  pathetic  effort  to  draw 
his  wife  out  of  her  morbid  self -probing  and  self- 
denunciation,  for  she  had  inherited  too  little  from 
"the  sunny-natured  antetypes  of  her  mo ther's 
race, ' '  too  little  of  t  i  the  heaven-born  cheerfulness 
with  which  it  meets  contumely  and  injustice. " 16 
He  is  not  successful  in  combating  her  sense  of 
guilt,  any  more  than  love  and  Italy  could  infuse 
the  joy  of  life  apart  from  service  into  the  Calvin- 
ized  soul  of  Grace  Breen.  Of  course,  Howells ' 
pity  for  the  black  people  is  infinite,  imperiously 
dictated  by  his  ever-present  sense  of  humanity, 
but  An  Imperative  Duty  is  not  a  brief  for  them, 
being  concerned  only  with  the  problem  which  its 
title  states.  The  only  sort  of  equality  it  demands 
for  them  is  equality  before  their  Maker,  an  ideal 
which  its  author  finds  more  nearly  realized  in  the 
Church  of  Rome  than  in  any  of  the  Protestant 
denominations. 

The  same  passion  for  pointing  a  moral  of  easy 
applicability  has  discovered  A  Woman's  Reason 
(1883)  to  be  an  educational  tract,  a  book  for  all 
rich  girls  to  read  and  take  to  heart  against  the 
time  when  their  papas  must  die  insolvent  and 
leave  them  to  battle  alone  against  a  cruel  and  sor 
did  world  which  would  deny  them  bread.  The  fact 
is  that  Helen  Harkness,  had  she  been  given  the 
advantage  of  a  business  and  industrial  education, 
would  nevertheless  have  been  at  an  insuperable 

14  An  Imperative  Duty  (1891),  p.  132. 
p.  149. 


194          William  Dean  Howells 

disadvantage  in  the  economic  struggle,  for  she  too 
has  the  demoniacal  conscience.  She  has  also  her 
quota  of  that  New  England  stubbornness  of  will 
with  which  Mrs.  Wilkins-Freeman  so  freely  en 
dows  her  provincial  characters.  This  trait  is  a 
breeder  of  woes  more  prolific  for  Helen  than  the 
conscience,  but  worse  than  either  is  her  native 
shallowness  and  general  incompetency  to  cope 
with  any  situation.  Furthermore,  her  lover, 
Eobert  Fenton,  who  might  have  brought  her  to 
her  senses,  is,  impossible  though  it  may  seem, 
more  incompetent  than  she,  which  calls  to  mind 
sundry  observations  of  Balzac  on  the  difficulties 
of  demonstrating  anything  from  the  conduct  of 
shallow  persons.  In  fact,  the  spectacle  of  Miss 
Harkness  among  the  bread-winners  argues  more 
feebly  than  the  frank  and  simple  caricature  of  the 
pampered  daughter  of  society  delivered  in  the 
person  of  Muriel,  the  heroine  of  A  Sea-Change. 
No  sort  of  education,  in  short,  is  potent  to  pro 
duce  a  Helen  Harkness. 

Her  sad  story,  which  is  doubled  in  length  by  the 
accident  of  a  ship's  breaking  its  shaft,  is  made 
possible  at  all  only  by  Fenton 's  folly  in  taking  her 
at  her  word  when  she  says  she  cannot  be  his, 
whereupon  he  secures  a  post  in  China,  through  ex 
change  with  a  brother  officer.  Even  then,  Mrs. 
Butler  "felt  that  all  Helen  need  really  do  was  to 
go  to  Europe  with  her,  and  return  to  marry  Rob 
ert  Fenton  as  soon  as  he  could  get  leave  to  come 
home."  16  Instead,  the  interim  is  passed  in  futile 
attempts  at  financial  independence,  the  finer  sen 
sibilities  dictating  that  she  give  away  what  little 

™A  Woman's  Season  (1883),  p.  170. 


His  Fiction:  Transcripts  of  Life    195 

money  she  has.  In  the  case  of  her  giving  up  her 
entire  estate  of  five  thousand  dollars,  against  the 
vehement  advice  of  her  lawyer,  we  are  left  to  un 
derstand  that  there  actually  was  fraud  in  the  auc 
tion  lay  which  it  was  saved  to  her,  the  selling  price 
of  her  father's  property  being  run  up  by  fictitious 
bids.  But  the  facts  in  the  case  were  unknown  to 
Helen  in  her  quixotic  determination;  so  we  can 
applaud,  if  we  care  to  applaud,  only  the  triumph 
of  feminine  divination. 

The  most  unconvincing  episode  is  her  endeavor 
to  make  a  living  by  ceramics,  an  episode  which 
surely  overleaps  its  au thor's  purpose,  posing  this 
exemplar  of  the  fine  sensibilities  in  a  hopelessly 
vulgar  light.  To  take  her  painted  vases  to  a  jew 
eler's  shop,  she  must  needs  ride  in  a  carriage; 
and  finding  that  she  is  known  to  the  dealer,  she  is 
utterly  unable  to  explain  what  she  wants  done 
with  her  wares,  but  makes  an  ignominious  flight. 
She  finally  succeeds  in  leaving  them  at  another 
shop.  She  actually  survives  the  shame  of  seeing 
her  work  exposed  to  the  public  for  sale.  But  then 
comes  the  catastrophe,  the  last  ignominy  to  which 
she  helplessly  succumbs.  Some  of  the  vases  are 
sold.  Now,  even  were  one  willing  to  take  it  on 
trust  that  a  "lady"  would  be  outraged  on  learn 
ing  that  some  one  had  purchased  her  vases  painted 
for  that  purpose,  what  stretch  of  imagination 
could  picture  her  venting  her  wrath  upon  the  inno 
cent  shopkeeper,  or  indignantly  demanding  of  the 
purchaser  the  motive  for  his  insolence? 

There  has  here  occurred  a  temporary  but  inter 
esting  breakdown  of  Ho  wells'  objective  technique, 
a  natural  result  of  employing  so  fine  an  instru- 


196          William  Dean  Howells 

ment  on  crude  stock  materials.  His  efforts  at  de 
tachment  are  laborious,  and  it  is  difficult  to  say 
whether  Helen  suffers  the  more  from  idealization 
or  ridicule.  He  now  feels  it  necessary  to  cajole  his 
reader  into  an  admiration  for  her  "fine  sensibili 
ties  "  and  again,  as  in  the  episode  of  the  vases, 
lunges  boldly  into  satire,  in  perfect  confidence  that 
the  reader  catches  her  ladylike  witchery.  Her 
story  would  pass  with  slight  alteration  either  for 
one  of  those  familiar  tales  of  the  noble  poor,  such 
as  Octave  Feuillet's  Roman  d'un  Jeune  Homme 
Pauvre,  or  for  a  capital  burlesque  of  them.  The 
satiric  note  is  struck  again  and  again,  as  in 
Helen's  romantic  notion  of  being  in  humble  cir 
cumstances  when  Robert  conies  to  claim  her: 
" Don't  you  see?  I  must  be  here,  and  I  must  be 
wretched,  to  be  perfectly  true  to  him."17  Then 
come  explanations.  "She  saw  the  reasonableness 
of  pain,"  it  is  urged,  "that  to  a  coarser  sense 
would  only  have  been  ludicrous."  18 

But  Helen's  story  is  only  the  half.  The  agonies 
of  Fenton,  who  after  the  separation  is  attacked 
by  a  malignant  nostalgia  and  love-sickness,  might 
have  been  copied  out  of  some  mediaeval  adaptation 
of  Ovid,  did  not  the  heroes  of  courtly  romance 
know  better  how  to  ease  their  malady.  He  furi 
ously  resents  all  attempts  to  send  him  home ;  but 
the  poor  doctor,  who  is  treated  worse  than  the 
purchaser  of  Helen's  vases,  finally  has  him  or 
dered  back  with  dispatches.  The  doctor's  relief, 
however,  is  not  shared  by  the  reader.  Fearful 
adventures  are  brought  to  pass  on  coral  islands, 

"  A  Woman's  Season  (1883),  p.  212. 
"  Ibid.,  p.  205. 


His  Fiction:  Transcripts  of  Life   197 

among  man-eating  sharks  and  what  not,  which 
prolong  indefinitely  the  separation  of  the  lovers. 

This  portion  of  the  novel  warrants  careful  scru 
tiny  by  students  of  the  narrative  art,  for  it  ex 
hibits  a  curious  technical  perversion  to  which 
Howells  is  very  naturally  subject  in  writing  ro 
mance.  Instead  of  aiming  to  induce  that  "volun 
tary  suspension  of  disbelief "  which  Coleridge 
fixed  upon  as  the  desideratum  in  dealing  poeti 
cally  with  the  supernatural,  and  which  all  skilful 
romancers  like  Marion  Crawford  and  Kobert 
Louis  Stevenson  secure  in  dealing  fictionally  with 
the  improbable,  he  undertakes  to  inspire  convic 
tion  by  forestalling  his  reader  in  pointing  out  the 
impossibility  of  his  events,  seeming  to  point  with 
pride  to  his  realism  in  dissipating  the  spirit  and 
aroma  of  adventure.  The  motive  will  at  first 
blush  strike  the  reader  as  either  amateurishly 
apologetic  or  satiric,  but  he  will  finally  come  to 
view  the  author  in  the  naive  attitude  of  assuring 
him  that,  whereas  such  things  have  hitherto  hap 
pened  only  in  cheap  romances,  here,  strange  to 
say,  we  have  them  occurring  in  actual  fact.  This 
curious  literary  self-consciousness,  I  am  sorry 
to  say,  is  not  a  sporadic  manifestation  in  Howells ' 
art,  oddly  as  it  consorts  with  an  art  so  fine ;  it  first 
appeared  as  the  comparatively  innocuous  manner 
ism  noted  in  Their  Wedding  Journey,  and  is  in 
deed  innocuous  enough  in  A  Woman's  Reason  so 
long  as  the  events  to  which  he  is  calling  attention 
are  natural  and  real. 

He  carefully  calls  our  attention  to  the  "series 
of  trivial  chances"  employed  in  contriving  Helen's 
story — "those  chances  of  real  life  which  one  must 


198          William  Dean  Howells 

hesitate  to  record  because  they  have  so  much  the 
air  of  having  been  contrived!"19  One  can  only 
regret  the  intrusions  of  this  mannerism,  since  the 
coincidences  that  call  them  forth  stand  on  their 
own  merits.  Sometimes  they  are  lifelike  and 
amusing,  sometimes  unreal.  The  special  Provi 
dence,  as  Jessie  Butler  declares  it,  which  ar 
ranges  that  Helen  shall  meet  Lord  Eainford,  her 
noble  suitor,  at  Mrs.  Wilson 's,  after  being  hurried 
there  to  avoid  him,  is  well  engineered,  for  exam 
ple;  but  there  is  a  distressing  insincerity  about 
the  "trivial  chance"  by  which  Margaret's  hus 
band  is  blown  up  at  the  glass  works.  He  was  a 
coarse  fellow  who  objected  in  very  unrefined 
terms  to  Helen's  coming  in  and  breaking  up  his 
home;  but  his  taking  off  was  not  in  punishment 
for  this,  as  the  reader  is  left  to  suppose,  but  solely 
to  permit  Margaret  to  resume  her  duties  as 
Helen's  housekeeper  without  the  indecorum  of  a 
quarrel.  Eobert  is  at  hand;  the  Fenton  home 
would  not  be  complete  without  Margaret,  and 
nothing  must  be  suffered  to  mar  the  happiness  in 
which  the  long  tale  draws  to  its  close.  We  do  not 
here  detect  that  solicitude  for  the  happiness  of 
laboring  men  which  is  shortly  to  loom  so  large  in 
Howells'  work — after  he  no  longer  permitted  him 
self  to  turn  aside  from  his  real  work  to  do  ro 
mancing. 

It  must  not  be  believed  that  such  a  piece  of — 
"nefarious  art,"  John  M.  Eobertson  brands  it,  is 
characteristic  of  this  period  of  Howells'  career  as 
a  novelist.  It  was  permitted  immediately  to  fol 
low  the  strong  and  sincere  novel,  A  Modern  In- 

»  A  Woman's  Reason  (1883),  p.  453. 


His  Fiction:  Transcripts  of  Life  199 

stance  (1882),  and  it  in  turn  was  followed  by  The 
Rise  of  Silas  Lapham  (1884),  one  of  the  very  high 
est  reaches  of  his  art.  Immediately  before  A 
Modern  Instance  appeared  another  inferior  work, 
A  Fearful  Responsibility  (1881),  but  in  this  novel 
— or  novelette — the  author  does  not  take  his  re 
sponsibilities  as  an  artist  quite  so  lightly  as  he 
did  in  A  Woman's  Reason. 

The  invalid  professor  in  this  story,  Owen  El- 
more,  who  goes  abroad  during  the  Civil  War  to 
work  on  what  is  referred  to  as  a  national  enter 
prise,  since  so  many  Americans  projected  it, — a 
history  of  Venice, — has  neither  the  brains  nor  the 
spine  to  bear  a  responsibility.  The  responsibility 
is  nevertheless  foisted  upon  him  in  the  person  of 
a  young  sister  of  one  of  his  wife's  friends,  and 
the  international  drama  begins.  What  fills  the 
soul  of  the  professor  with  trembling  and  dismay 
is  the  prospect  of  Miss  Mayhew's  making  ac 
quaintances  in  an  unconventional  manner,  not  his 
real  duty  to  investigate  and  appraise  the  worth 
of  the  young  Austrian  officer  whose  acquaintance 
she  does  make.  Horror  of  the  unconventional 
situation  paralyzes  him,  precluding  all  the  useful 
efforts  that  a  sane  and  normal  man  might  make  in 
behalf  of  his  charge.  His  brutal  dismissal  of  Von 
Ehrhardt,  whose  letter  enclosing  the  proposal  of 
marriage  he  acknowledges  "touchingly  brave  and 
fine,"20  causes  him  poignant  remorse  later,  but 
that  helps  the  story  very  little.  The  pity  is  that 
Von  Ehrhardt  is  dismissed  by  the  author  as  well 
as  by  his  crazy  hero.  This  is  regrettable  not 
merely  because  he  makes  fair  promise  of  becom- 

30  A  Fearful  Responsibility  (1881),  p.  78. 


2OO          William  Dean  Howells 

ing  one  of  the  most  valuable  and  original  con 
tributions  to  the  foreign  sketches,  a  complement 
to  the  trifling  officers  drawn  in  The  Lady  of  the 
AroostooJc  and  Indian  Summer,  but  because  with 
out  knowing  him  we  can  make  nothing  of  Lily's 
disappointment.  The  author's  way  of  patching 
this  up  is  to  take  away  the  disappointment.  He 
descends  unwillingly  to  exegesis;  but  presently, 
almost  congratulating  us  on  our  ignorance  of  the 
facts,  he  begins  to  hint  that  Elmore  's  regrets  were 
unfounded,  and  that  Lily,  after  all  her  agonies, 
did  not  care  so  very  much.  It  finally  appears, 
then,  that  the  only  person  whom  the  story  could 
possibly  concern  is  Elmore,  who  would  have  made 
a  tragedy  of  life  under  any  circumstances. 

"He  could  not  at  once  realize  that  the  tragedy 
of  this  romance,  such  as  it  was,  remained  to  him 
alone,  except  perhaps  as  Ehrhardt  shared  it. 
With  him,  indeed,  Elmore  still  sought  to  fret  his 
remorse  and  keep  it  poignant,  and  his  final  fail 
ure  to  do  so  made  him  ashamed.  But  what  last 
ing  sorrow  can  one  have  from  the  disappointment 
of  a  man  whom  one  has  never  seen  ?  If  Lily  could 
console  herself,  it  seemed  probable  that  Ehrhardt 
too  had  '  got  along/ 

The  reader  may  pertinently  ask  here,  as  in  con 
nection  with  A  Woman's  Reason,  what  has  be 
fallen  Howells  with  his  great  principle  of  objec 
tivity  and  detachment;  and  here  again  I  think  it 
may  fairly  be  answered  that  he  has  not  flagged  in 
his  strife  to  attain  it.  His  method,  however,  has 
defeated  its  own  end.  Thus,  the  suppression  of 

*A  Fearful  Responvibility  (1881),  p.  163. 


His  Fiction:  Transcripts  of  Life  201 

fact  which,  necessitates  the  descent  to  bald  exe 
gesis  is  presumably  in  the  interest  of  detachment, 
to  convey  a  strikingly  veracious  impression  of 
life's  incertitude  for  the  casual  observer.  The 
death  of  Mrs.  Meredith  in  An  Imperative  Duty  is 
a  successful  instance;  but  aloofness  for  its  own 
sake,  as  we  have  it  in  A  Fearful  Responsibility, 
is  hardly  worth  while.  We  are  here  invited  to 
take  delight  in  a  situation  not  "subject  to  inter 
pretation,  "  as  Henry  James  liked  his  situations, 
but  subject  merely  to  pointless  guessing.  It  is  not 
so  that  certain  French  masters  who  have  made  a 
fetich  of  objectivity  dispose  their  materials.  How 
artfully  De  Maupassant  contrives  that  nothing 
shall  be  withheld,  and  that  what  is  given  shall 
have  its  full  effect!  Howells,  in  this  story,  by 
getting  himself  so  deeply  engrossed  in  his  poor 
professor's  qualms  and  fears,  deprives  him  of 
some  of  his  best  effects  and  actually  fails  to  bring 
off  the  one  big  joke  of  his  career.  De  Maupas 
sant,  without  injustice  to  the  merits  of  Owen  El- 
more,  would  have  raised  hilarious  laughter  at  his 
being  recalled  to  America  to  become  the  head  of  a 
military  college. 

I  have  dwelt  on  these  two  stories  of  Howells  not 
for  the  sake  of  passing  judgment  upon  them  but 
to  illustrate  in  the  first  instance  his  incapacity  for 
handling  second-rate  materials,  and  in  the  second 
a  limitation  of  his  literary  method  which  does  not 
often  betray  itself  so  disastrously,  but  which  does 
lend  some  of  his  highly  successful  stories  an  air  of 
being  mere  tours  de  force.  The  Story  of  a  Play 
(1898),  for  example,  is  a  dazzling  piece  of  tech 
nique  but  leaves  with  its  reader  a  certain  sense 


202          William  Dean  Howells 

not  of  futility  perhaps,  but  of  undue  lavishness  in 
the  means  by  which  it  brings  about  its  simple  end. 
This  novel  gives  us  the  private  history  of  Mr. 
Brice  Maxwell's  first  play,  from  composition 
through  the  vicissitudes  of  placing  and  rehearsal 
to  final  triumph.  Mrs.  Maxwell,  who  will  be  re 
membered  by  readers  of  The  Quality  of  Mercy  as 
Miss  Louise  Hilary,  has  allowed  a  good  deal  of 
her  own  courtship  to  be  written  into  her  husband's 
play,  and  sentimental  memories  color  her  whole 
attitude  toward  it.  The  situation  is  further  com 
plicated  by  the  presence  in  the  cast  of  the  actor 
Launcelot  Godolphin,  whose  instinct  for  collabora 
tion,  and  whose  capacity  for  inspired  clap-trap, 
which  he  wishes  incorporated  into  the  drama  that 
is  to  make  his  fortune,  may  be  feebly  inferred 
from  his  name.  The  crisis  is  brought  about  by  the 
discovery  of  a  real  emotional  actress  with  ' i  smoul 
dering  eyes,"  who  promises  to  assure  the  success 
of  the  production,  but  who  takes  away  the  honors 
from  Godolphin  and  by  the  liberal  infusion  of 
passion  violates  everything  in  the  play  that  makes 
it  sacred  to  Louise.  Now  this,  which  is  in  reality 
a  very  simple  problem,  becomes  an  intrigue  of 
astonishing  complexity  as  the  author  carries  it  on 
through  chapter  after  chapter  without  once  con 
descending  to  take  his  side  with  any  participant. 
Here  is  clearly  a  case  in  which  the  verbal  art,  how 
ever  cunning,  cannot  give  the  full  effect  of  life. 
One  personal  attendance  at  rehearsal  would  solve 
for  the  spectator  the  whole  problem  of  the  woman 
with  the  smouldering  eyes.  With  nothing  but  what 
an  impartial  author  is  willing  to  give  us,  however, 
we  must  witness  the  thing  from  a  thousand  angles 


His  Fiction:  Transcripts  of  Life  203 

and  collect  the  most  amazing  variety  of  evidence. 
The  defect  of  this  method  as  here  displayed  is  that 
we  are  really  more  concerned  with  the  adroitness 
of  the  author  than  with  the  aspirations  of  any  of 
his  characters.  The  objection  to  calling  it  a 
shallow  or  superficial  method,  however,  is  that  in 
the  process  we  secure  accurate  measures  of  the 
jealousy  and  sentimentality  of  Louise  and  arrive 
at  a  comprehension  of  her  mind  and  heart  such  as 
we  could  never  have  attained  had  the  author  told 
us  all  about  them. 

To  show  Howells'  method  in  the  fulness  of  its 
triumph  it  is  unnecessary  to  turn  to  the  more  am 
bitious  works,  A  Modern  Instance  and  The  Rise  of 
Silas  Lapham,  that  appeared  at  the  time  of  A 
Woman's  Reason  and  A  Fearful  Responsibility. 
These  will  be  treated  in  the  next  chapter.  In 
Indian  Summer  (1885)  he  achieved  what  seems  to 
me  perfection  in  the  vein  of  The  Lady  of  the 
Aroostook.  I  am  quite  unable  to  follow  my  favor 
ite  commentator,  John  M.  Robertson,  in  his  dis 
satisfaction  with  this  book;  I  can  only  with  diffi 
culty  catch  the  point  of  view,  a  thoroughly  unsym 
pathetic  one,  from  which  the  ending  in  which  the 
fat  Adonis  of  forty  is  "severed  from  the  too  ini 
tiative  young  woman  and  saved  to  the  too  obstruc 
tive  widow"  appears  "so  merely  childish  as  to 
move  derision. ' ' 22  This  ending  was  begun  on  the 
very  first  page  of  the  novel. 

In  his  attitude  toward  the  personages  of  the 
story,  Howells  is  happy  throughout,  but  signally 
so  in  the  case  of  Imogene  Grahame,  the  romantic 
young  lady.  To  the  reader  who  keeps  Helen 

*  Essays  Toward  a  Critical  Method  (1889),  p.  115. 


204          William  Dean  Howells 

Harkness  in  mind,  Imogene  must  appear  a  veri 
table  triumph  of  the  author  over  himself,  so  com 
plete  is  his  superiority  to  her.  He  never  leaves  us 
with  the  suspicion  that  her  sentimental  notions 
are  not  her  very  own.  He  sometimes  goes  out  of 
his  way  to  portray  her  from  a  fresh  angle,  but 
these  occasions,  such  as  the  one  on  which  he  em 
ploys  a  whole  band  of  German  students,  are  al 
ways  welcome. 

The  principal  characters  are  not  precisely  sen 
sible  people,  but  they  are  quite  different  from  the 
mental  weaklings  of  A  Fearful  Responsibility. 
Hence,  though  their  situation  is  essentially  of 
their  own  making,  they  prove  something.  They 
illustrate  life  in  a  selective  phase,  a  highly  selec 
tive  phase,  perhaps  beyond  or  beneath  the  reach 
of  a  more  pretentious  art.  Certainly  the  problem 
of  love  between  persons  of  disparate  ages  is  em 
bellished  with  subtler  shades  of  thought  and  feel 
ing  than  Turgeniev  had  opportunity  to  display  in 
his  serious  treatment  of  the  theme.  And  I  can 
think  of  no  one  who  in  a  novel  has  elaborated  with 
such  a  wealth  of  exquisite  nuance,  and  with  so 
keen  an  eye  for  its  humorous  and  whimsical  as 
well  as  its  pathetic  aspects,  the  emotion  voiced 
with  divine  despair  in  Tennyson's  immortal  lyric, 
' '  Tears,  Idle  Tears. " 

Theodore  Colville  is  no  hero,  but  it  is  readily 
understood  why  he  became  a  successful  Indiana 
journalist,  while  a  godlike  imagination  is  required 
to  figure  Owen  Elmore  at  the  head  of  a  military 
college  or  Robert  Fenton  as  a  naval  officer.  Col 
ville  has  just  crossed  the  meridian  of  forty,  when 
political  reverses  and  freedom  from  professional 


His  Fiction:  Transcripts  of  Life  205 

duties  turn  him  toward  Europe  and  youthful 
dreams  of  architecture.  Age,  he  discovers,  has 
brought  in  its  disillusionments — and  he  has  not 
yet  lived.  He  suffers  a  cosmic  incompatibility, 
more  acutely  than  James'  Christopher  Newman; 
and  even  as  Christopher,  he  makes  a  desperate, 
sometimes  despairing  effort  to  play  the  flaneur. 
He  achieves  a  very  complex,  a  fatal  state  of  mind 
and  heart  in  which  to  meet  Imogene  Grahame,  so 
beautiful,  so  susceptible,  so  keenly  interested  in 
his  emotional  history,  so  eager  to  sacrifice  herself 
for  some  noble  ideal.  This  follows  a  chance  en 
counter  with  his  old  acquaintance  Mrs.  Bowen  on 
the  Ponte  Vecchio.  Mrs.  Bowen,  a  charming 
widow,  until  we  know  her  better,  just  in  the  bloom 
of  maturity,  is  placed  in  a  delicate  situation  as 
Imogene  Js  protectress.  The  devious  course  by 
which  Imogene 's  sacrifice  is  averted  to  her  advan 
tage  must  be  followed  leisurely  to  be  enjoyed. 

Howells  has  done  nothing  more  enjoyable  in  his 
lighter  vein,  combining  as  this  story  does  the  sa 
lient  features  of  the  international  novel,  the  love 
romance,  and  the  conscience  story,  without  excess, 
over-emphasis,  or  disproportion.  Colville  is  some 
what  obtuse,  as  must  be,  but  he  does  not  share  the 
monumental  stupidity  of  Ford,  the  lover  in  The 
Undiscovered  Country.  He  proves  his  courage  in 
an  accident,  but  an  accident  free  from  the  heroics 
of  The  Lady  of  the  Aroostook.  And  he  champions 
the  social  institutions  of  American  democracy 
wisely  if  not  so  well  as  certain  earlier  and  later 
compatriots.  In  the  picturesque  quality  of  its 
Florentine  setting  the  novel  does  not  fall  below  the 
high  excellence  to  which  Howells  has  habituated 


206          William  Dean  Howells 

us,  although  this  feature  is  less  ornately  accom 
plished  than  the  Venetian  background  against 
which  A  Foregone  Conclusion  plays.  Indian  Sum 
mer  is,  in  a  word,  a  sublimated  synthesis  of  the 
elements  that  define  the  so-called  early  manner, 
though  that  manner  be  a  scant  respecter  of  chro 
nology. 

The  novels  immediately  succeeding  Indian  Sum 
mer  mark  Howells'  return  in  deadly  earnest  to  his 
researches  in  morbid  conscientiousness.  In  The 
Minister's  Charge;  or  the  Apprenticeship  of 
Lemuel  Barker  (1887)  we  encounter  the  dawn  of 
Tolstoian  humanitarianism,  but  a  dark  and  cheer 
less  dawn,  scarcely  distinguishable  from  the  sul 
len  twilight  of  Puritanism.  It  is  the  precursor  of 
the  sociological  novels,  avowedly  Tolstoian,  which' 
begin  with  Annie  Kilburn  (1888) ;  but  these  will 
be  spoken  of  in  a  later  chapter.  Meanwhile,  in 
April  Hopes  (1888),  he  turned  off  a  love  story  in 
more  playful  mood,  but  impregnated  by  the  two 
themes  then  engrossing  him,  contemporary  Puri 
tanism  and  social  democracy. 

I  cannot  but  rank  April  Hopes  a  little  below  In 
dian  Summer,  although  Robertson,  who  did  not 
like  Indian  Summer  at  all,  pronounces  it  "a  com 
plete  success. "  The  two  are  alike  in  being  com 
prehensively  characteristic  of  Howells'  lighter 
manner,  but  in  the  later  book  the  conscience  mo 
tive,  for  one  thing,  is  a  trifle  overworked  for  a 
story  calculated,  as  we  may  presume  it  is,  to  dem 
onstrate 

"how  this  spring  of  love  resembleth 
The  uncertain  glory  of  an  April  day." 


His  Fiction:  Transcripts  of  Life  207 

The  weather  is  conspicuously  lacking  in  glory. 
Gloriously  to  show  forth  the  infection  of  love  de 
mands  a  heroine  of  more  wholesome  normality 
than  Alice  Pasmer,  who,  one  must  agree  with  Miss 
Anderson,  is,  if  not  positively  morbid,  something 
very  like  it.  "I  think  she's  moybid,  Alice  is," 
Miss  Anderson  comments.  "She  isn't  moybid 
in  the  usual  sense  of  the  woyd,  but  she  expects 
more  of  herself  and  of  the  woyld  generally  than 
anybody's  going  to  get  out  of  it."23  Alice  is  a 
pastiche  of  Turgeniev's  Liza,  who  has  lent  her 
loveliness  to  many  of  the  Howells  girls,  but  she 
suffers  by  being  put  through  some  of  Liza's  emo 
tional  experiences  without  the  visible  situation  to 
call  them  forth.  She  contemplates  taking  the  veil 
ridiculously  early.  The  story  opens  with  a  lei 
surely  description  of  a  Harvard  class  day,  where 
Alice  has  been  reminded  she  is  sure  to  meet  her 
fate,  a  consummation  requiring  five  hundred  pages 
or  something  less  of  misgivings,  disagreements, 
and  reconciliations,  and  after  which  the  curtain 
falls  on  a  Jane  Austenian  note,  presaging  storms 
ahead,  but  hardly  resonant  enough.  We  groan 
for  them. 

But  despite  the  spirituality  of  its  heroine,  April 
Hopes  is  a  gay  book.  The  love  story  is  constantly 
enlivened  by  sketches  of  the  Boston  aristocracy, 
introducing  the  Coreys  and  the  Bellinghams, 
known  of  old.  Harvard  men  may  like  the  college 
color  even  less  than  that  in  The  Landlord  at 
Lion's  Head,  since  a  more  deliberately  destruc 
tive  touch  is  brought  to  bear  upon  the  vaunted 
democracy  and  fellowship  of  student  life.  The 

*  April  Hopes  (1888),  p.  90. 


208          William  Dean  Howells 

effect,  however,  is  not  essentially  different  from 
that  of  the  more  sympathetic  Harvard  Episodes 
of  Charles  M.  Flandrau.  The  thesis,  which  seems 
ably  defended,  is  that  the  world  has  little  to  teach 
these  undergraduates  of  worldliness  and  snob 
bery.  Mrs.  Pasmer,  Alice 's  mother,  is  the  chef- 
d'ozuvre  of  aristocratic  portraiture,  mistress  of 
all  the  ridiculous  social  arts  of  feigned  uncon 
sciousness,  simulated  surprises,  and  persistent 
fibbing.  None  can  approach  her  excellence  in  ac 
centing  those  most  damning  words  in  the  parlance 
of  the  elect:  "We  don't  know  anything  about 
them." 

One  of  the  most  delightful  of  these  lighter  tran 
scripts  of  manners  is  The  Coast  of  Bohemia 
(1893),  in  which  Howells  turns,  after  the  severer 
sociological  researches  of  Annie  Kilburn  (1888), 
A  Hazard  of  New  Fortunes  (1889),  and  The 
Quality  of  Mercy  (1892),  to  the  artistic  world  of 
the  metropolis  or  rather  to  the  fringes  of  that 
world,  for  his  theme.  All  the  old  problems  are 
with  us  in  a  fresh  atmosphere  and  informed  by 
the  presence  of  a  very  grateful  motive,  not  new 
actually  of  course,  but  new  in  its  pervasive  effect 
upon  the  story,  the  variegated  follies  of  the  artis 
tic  temperament.  The  ostensible  heroine,  Cor 
nelia  Saunders,  an  inveterate  self -analyst,  and  a 
second  Helen  Harkness  in  pride,  tries  in  vain  to 
spoil  the  story  and  make  it  only  a  less  impossible 
version  of  A  Woman's  Reason.  In  this  attempt 
she  is  frustrated  by  the  presence  of  her  foil,  Char- 
mian  Maybough. 

It  was  a  structural  master-stroke  to  make  Char- 
mian,  the  chief  sufferer  with  the  disease,  the  ar- 


His  Fiction:  Transcripts  of  Life  209 

tistic  temperament,  at  the  same  time  the  one  fun 
damentally  well-balanced  and  clear-sighted  char 
acter  in  the  novel.  Charmian  's  favorite  maxim  is 
that  art  is  all  one,  in  accordance  with  which  she 
makes  up  her  deficiencies  in  drawing  by  leading 
the  artistic  life,  that  is,  so  far  as  her  step-mother, 
who  is  passionately  devoted  to  the  conventions, 
will  allow  her.  Her  innate  common  sense,  which 
Howells  conceals  from  the  reader  as  artfully  as 
she  conceals  it  from  herself,  restrains  her  from 
disrupting  the  family  peace,  so  that  she  lives  her 
double  life  of  respectability  and  art  in  serene 
complacency.  Giving  up  her  mother  as  a  hope 
less  slave  to  society,  she  revels  in  martyrdom,  and 
cleverly  arranges  her  studio  in  their  apartments 
with  a  low-hung  canvas  ceiling  to  simulate  pov 
erty.  Here  she  finds  an  exquisite  freedom  from 
the  "unreality"  of  the  life  to  which  she  must  re 
turn  as  part  of  the  bargain,  and  makes  heroic  ef 
forts  to  smoke  cigarettes.  From  this  vantage 
point  she  wafts  her  breezy  comments  on  the  social 
customs  of  her  mother's  kind.  "And  my  one  lux 
ury  is  going  home  alone, "  she  confides  on  one 
occasion.  "Mamma  doesn't  allow  it,  except  to 
and  from  the  Synthesis.  Then  I'm  an  art  student 
and  perfectly  safe.  If  I  were  a  young  lady  my 
life  wouldn  't  be  worth  anything. ' ' 24  The  foolish 
tragedy  of  Cornelia  supplies  her  with  an  orgy  of 
romance.  The  significant  thing  about  her  partici 
pation,  however,  is  that  when  the  affair  has  be 
come  too  preposterous  even  for  her  to  maintain 
an  ecstasy  in  it,  she  is  the  only  one  who  realizes 
that  the  thing  has  been  played  out.  Charmian  is 

"The  Coast  of  Bohemia  (1893),  p.  164. 


2io          William  Dean  Howells 

the  clou  of  the  book.  Though  she  is  presented  as 
a  fantastic  creation,  her  eccentricity  is  erected  on 
normal  substratum,  and  she  is  constantly  saving 
the  aberrant  natures  surrounding  her  from  laps 
ing  into  vapidity. 

Ragged  Lady  (1899),  in  which  the  international 
theme  is  resumed  and  the  love  and  conscience 
problems  continued,  has  no  such  savior  as  Char- 
mian  Maybough,  but  needs  her  less.  This  novel 
has  a  quite  extraordinary  charm  in  detail,  and 
cannot  be  omitted  by  those  interested  in  Puritan 
ism  or  desiring  proof  that  the  possibilities  of 
morbid  conscientiousness  in  its  personal  applica 
tions  are  exhaustless.  In  Dr.  Breen's  Practice, 
Howells  fully  exposed  the  sheer  inhumanity  of 
dutiology,  but  he  has  in  this  lighter  tale  uncov 
ered  new  and  interesting  aspects  of  the  matter. 

In  The  Kentons  (1902),  the  most  popular  of 
Howells'  later  novels,  we  continue  to  observe 
spirituality  in  its  Mid- Western  condition.  Miss 
Ellen  Kenton  is  a  typical  maiden  of  the  tearful 
and  conscience-stricken  type,  who  ends  by  accus 
ing  herself  of  "a  certain  essential  levity  of  na 
ture.  ' '  From  her  unselfishness  spring  all  the  woes 
of  the  Kenton  family.  Here  again,  I  am  afraid 
that  Howells  in  his  desire  to  do  his  creation  justice 
has  slipped  into  too  effective  a  sympathy  for  her. 
Miss  Ellen  is  exalted  for  her  spiritual  qualities 
greatly  to  the  disadvantage  of  her  slangy,  minx- 
like,  conscience-free,  but  wholesome-hearted  sis 
ter,  Lottie,  who  for  all  her  wilful  ways,  brings  no 
such  grief  to  her  parents.  That  this  partiality 
does  not  lack  an  appreciative  audience,  moreover, 
is  proved  by  the  remarks  of  Professor  William 


His  Fiction:  Transcripts  of  Life  211 

Lyon  Phelps,  who  discovers  something  very  fine 
in  the  fact  that  Lottie,  with  her  lively  charm  for 
men,  is  retired  as  "an  admirable  wife  and  house 
keeper/'  25  while  Ellen,  whose  lack  of  such  charm 
is  lamented,  is  left  "preserving  in  her  wealthy  en 
vironment  all  the  fruits  of  the  spirit. ' '  This  is  to 
set  the  shade  of  the  moral  Richardson  abroad. 
Surely  such  is  not  the  spirit  of  American  realism. 

The  Kentons  is  the  chronicle  of  an  Ohio  family 
in  flight  over  two  continents  in  order  to  save  their 
daughter  from  an  unfortunate  love  affair.  Its 
main  thesis  may  seem  to  reduce  to  absurdity  the 
proposition  that  American  parents  are  helpless 
and  afraid  before  their  children ;  but  the  marvels 
of  American  parenthood  are  in  fact  beyond  belief, 
and  when  the  international  situation  is  arrived  at, 
much  trenchant  comment  results.  The  Kenton 
girls  are  less  qualified  than  the  Lydia  Bloods  and 
Clementina  Claxons  of  Howells'  imagination  to 
bring  Europe  to  its  knees,  and  this  circumstance 
introduces  a  fresh  note  into  the  European  criti 
cism.  A  neat  point  is  scored  when  an  amiable 
Dutch  lady,  having  observed  the  actions  of  Miss 
Ellen,  remarks  to  Mrs.  Kenton  that  her  daughter 
evidently  has  not  been  long  married. 

In  Letters  Home  (1903),  which,  notwithstand 
ing  Howells'  declaration,  apropos  of  Richardson, 
in  Heroines  of  Fiction,  that  nobody  writes  novels 
in  letters  any  more,  appears  in  epistolary  form, 
we  find  the  New  England  conscience  afflicting  a 
young  man  instead  of  a  sentimental  maid,  and  a 
young  man  from  as  far  west  as  Iowa,  Mr.  Wallace 

""William  Dean  Howells,"   in  Essays  on  Modern  Novelists 
(1910),  pp.  56-81. 


212          William  Dean  Howells 

Ardith,  who  has  come  to  New  York  for  a  literary 
career.  There  is  a  lady  also,  Miss  Dennam,  a  con 
temporary  Puritan  from  a  village  in  western  New 
York  settled  by  New  England  people,  who  has 
her  principles  pretty  well  frayed  in  the  course  of 
her  metropolitan  experiences.  If  there  is  any 
doubt  that  the  quest  after  righteousness  may  be 
more  productive  of  suffering  than  a  thoroughly 
selfish  course,  the  history  of  Mr.  Wallace  Ardith 
ought  to  dispel  it.  An  absorbing  feature  of  this 
history  is  the  attempt  on  the  part  of  those  inter 
ested  to  fix  the  responsibility,  although  in  the  end 
they  lay  it  all  to  fate.  Letters  Home  also  adds  a 
portrait  to  the  Howells  gallery  of  self-made  mil 
lionaires — that  of  old  Ralston,  quite  worthy  to 
hang  beside  those  of  Lapham  and  Dryfoos;  and 
Miss  America  Ralston  has  her  points  of  superi 
ority  to  the  Lapham  and  the  Dryfoos  girls. 

Of  the  last  phase  of  Howells '  work  as  a  novelist, 
his  return  in  reminiscent  mood  and  with  some 
thing  of  the  historian's  intent  to  his  native  Ohio, 
I  shall  speak  later.  The  next  to  last  phase,  repre 
sented  by  the  two  novels,  Miss  Bellard's  Inspira 
tion  (1905)  and  Fennel  and  Rue  (1908),  which 
together  with  an  Altrurian  (Utopian)  romance 
follow  the  very  high  achievement  of  The  Son  of 
Royal  Langbrith  (1904),  is  a  sort  of  decadence 
into  the  psychological  manner.  In  these  books 
there  is  more  of  Henry  James  and  less  of  Jane 
Austen  than  in  any  other  two  from  his  pen.  Fen 
nel  and  Rue  is  an  elaborate  piece  of  vivisection. 
Although  the  scene  is  a  hospitable  home  thrown 
open  for  the  Christmas  revels,  it  is  not  gay.  But 
it  does  feature  a  type  which  fascinated  Howells 


His  Fiction:  Transcripts  of  Life  213 

and  with  which,  in  whatever  excess  of  analysis,  he 
was  never  to  know  failure  or  anything  like  it — the 
fatuous  mother  of  a  morbidly  egoistic  son. 

Miss  Bellard's  Inspiration  has  the  characteris 
tic  gaiety  which  is  lacking  in  Fennel  and  Rue,  but 
it  is  a  kind  of  joke  on  the  reader.  In  technical 
execution  it  is  superb  and  of  a  quality  with  the 
farces,  but  it  ends  not  with  the  logic  of  a  farce  but 
with  a  play  on  words.  We  find  in  it  HowenV 
repertoire  of  whimsical  variations  on  the  themes 
of  love  and  marriage,  all  rendered  with  a  virtu 
osity  that  precludes  ennui.  The  greater  part  of 
the  minor  action  is  illustrative  of  the  innate  con 
trariety  of  women.  The  major  theses  are  two : 
that  love  is  a  bar  to  marital  happiness  after  the 
first  stages  have  been  traversed,  and  that  intel 
lectuality  avails  nothing  in  combination  with 
femininity.  In  support  of  the  latter,  Miss  Lillias 
Bellard,  lecturer  on  oratory  in  a  Western  college, 
is  offered,  while  the  sad  case  of  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Mevison,  who  are  loving  and  fighting  each  other 
toward  a  final  separation  under  the  hospitable 
roof  of  the  Crombies,  is  evidence  for  the  former. 
They  are  reminiscent  of  the  Alderlings  in 
Though  One  Rose  from  the  Dead;  in  fact, 
theirs  is  a  theme  upon  which  Howells  felt  deeply. 
"Love,"  he  told  A.  Schade  Van  Westrum,  "is  for 
the  springtime  of  life ;  in  maturity  it  pales,  in  the 
most  fortunate  cases  into  a  beautiful  friendship, 
into  loyalty  rewarded  by  contentment,  which  is  a 
more  enduring  prize  than  the  ill-defined  state 
vaguely  described  as  happiness. " 26  Now,  Miss 

M"Mr.   Howells  on  Love  and  Literature"   in   Lamp    (1904), 
28:28. 


214          William  Dean  Howells 

Bellard,  intellectual,  emancipated,  knowing  that 
she  and  Mr.  Claybourne  love  each  other  too  much, 
and  with  the  horrible  example  of  the  Mevisons  be 
fore  her,  not  to  mention  the  "  sweet  intimacy"  of 
her  aunt  and  uncle,  does  not  yield  easily.  She 
heartlessly  insists  that  there  can  be  no  room  for 
two  such  couples  in  the  world,  and  they  must 
learn  to  love  each  other  much  less  before  the 
union  can  be  thought  of,  until  suddenly  she  has 
an  inspiration.  The  logical  argument  by  which 
she  appeases  her  intellect,  is  Howells'  neatest 
compliment  to  the  emancipated  woman. 

A  completely  domesticated  man  was  Howells, 
who  liked  to  read  plays  in  his  arm-chair  better 
than  to  go  to  the  theatre.  George  Moore's  vision 
of  him,  which  must  in  that  day  have  been  intended 
to  confer  a  final  damnation,  is  essentially  true, 
much  truer  than  the  inept  aphorism  so  often 
quoted : 

"I  see  him  the  happy  father  of  a  numerous 
family;  the  sun  is  shining,  the  girls  and  boys  are 
playing  on  the  lawn,  they  come  trooping  in  to  a 
high  tea,  and  there  is  dancing  in  the  evening."  2T 

For  all  that  he  has  made  of  love  in  its  springtime, 
he  is  more  successful  with  age.  His  young  lovers 
never  quite  compare  in  effectiveness  with  the  el 
derly  pair  in  the  background,  or,  by  rare  fortune, 
as  in  The  Rise  of  Silas  Lapham  or  The  Son  of 
Royal  Langbrith,  in  the  foreground.  The  Ken- 
tons,  who  have  attained  that  beautiful  state  of 
contentment  which  is  the  prize  of  loyalty,  are  the 
clou  of  their  book,  without  which  Ellen's  lovesick- 

v  Confessions  of  a  Young  Man  (1906),  p.  143. 


His  Fiction:  Transcripts  of  Life  215 

ness  would  be  shorn  of  meaning;  and  the  Dry- 
f  ooses,  and  the  Gaylords,  many  others  come  troop 
ing  up. 

Those  who  complain  of  Howells'  treatment  of 
young  love  are  invariably  mistaken  in  attributing 
their  dissatisfaction  to  his  conventionality.  The 
trouble  lies  not  in  his  acceptance  of  social  conven 
tion  for  his  young  people  but  in  his  repudiation 
of  literary  convention  for  them.  I  do  not  believe 
it  has  been  noted  that  if  one  were  to  construct  a 
Howells  doctrine  of  love,  it  would  destroy  precept 
upon  precept  the  traditional  creed  of  fiction,  which 
is  essentially  romantic.  The  spirit  of  his  work 
is  often  a  spirit  of  literary  criticism  and  only 
after  that  a  criticism  of  life.  I  do  not  mean  that 
at  these  times  he  writes  from  the  closet ;  he  writes 
from  close  contact  with  the  life  he  pictures,  but  in 
his  function  as  realistic  novelist,  he  embraces  that 
contact  with  the  spirit  of  an  evangelist.  And  no 
missionary  was  ever  content  with  the  eternal  veri 
ties.  The  result  in  his  work  is  that,  not  content  to 
record  life  as  he  sees  it,  he  must  needs  record  it 
as  others,  inclusively  branded  romanticists,  do  not 
see  it.  Most  of  the  flaws  are  left  by  a  talent  that 
overleaps  itself  in  excess  of  zeal.  The  stupidity 
of  his  lovers,  for  example,  which  makes  it  all  but 
impossible  for  them  to  know  that  they  are  in  love, 
is  owing  to  no  lack  of  passion  on  their  part,  but 
to  an  uncontrollable  aversion  on  the  part  of  their 
author  to  the  notion  of  love  at  first  sight.  He  is 
excessive  in  his  eagerness  to  demolish  the  super 
stition  that  young  women  find  great  joy  in  the  in 
terval  before  marriage.  The  virtues  of  faithful 
ness  and  self-sacrifice  as  they  are  extolled  in  Scott, 


216          William  Dean  Howells 

Dickens,  and  Thackeray,  he  finds  unsocial  and  un- 
humane.  Faithfulness  after  death,  such  as  that 
of  Helen  Pendennis,  fills  him  with  inextinguish 
able  wrath. 

By  his  willingness  to  mar  a  few  of  his  own  sto 
ries  in  order  to  show  the  obverse  of  the  medal, 
Howells  has  had  a  very  salutary  effect  on  con 
temporary  fiction.  He  has  made  us  critical  of 
traditional  notions,  some  handed  down  from  Ovid, 
through  the  courtly  singers  of  Provence,  and  the 
whole  line  of  mediaeval  romancers,  some  of  origins 
less  remote.  The  general  notion  of  love  as  a  mys 
tic  power  binding  two  human  beings  forever  and 
beyond  the  grave,  he  has  done  his  best  to  make  a 
laughing-stock.  This,  if  anything,  has  a  historical 
claim  upon  the  term,  so  sinister  from  his  pen, 
* '  romantic, "  evoking  as  it  does  what  images  of 
chivalry  and  courts  of  love !  The  knight  beholds 
his  lady  at  her  casement,  and  knows  from  the  in 
stant  that  they  have  been  celestially  bound  one  to 
the  other ;  that  he  must  serve  and  worship  her  for 
years  until  he  win  her ;  that  if  death  claim  either, 
the  other  must  follow,  or  as  the  least  concession 
to  beauty  must  live  a  whole  life  long  in  wretched 
ness.  If  the  lady  have  a  husband,  it  will  be  his 
divine  consolation  to  know  that  their  passion  can 
not  injure  him,  since  no  double  matches  are  made 
in  heaven !  It  is  not  without  historical  propriety 
that  we  stigmatize  as  romantic  those  fictions  which 
exist  to  proclaim  an  ennobling  effect  for  the  most 
vulgar  liaisons. 

Equally  variable  has  been  the  result  on  his  own 
fiction  of  Howells7  violent  revulsion  from  the 
grand  climaxes,  dreadful  catastrophes,  and  star- 


His  Fiction:  Transcripts  of  Life  217 

tlingly  contrived  coincidences  of  fictional  tradition. 
In  a  number  of  instances  lie  has  wilfully  with 
drawn  every  external  support  from  his  action. 
No  other  realist  has  carried  this  exaltation  of  the 
character  element  to  such  a  length,  certainly  not 
Jane  Austen,  nor  Valdes.  Valdes,  indeed,  has 
given  us  a  charming  though  simple-hearted  love 
story  in  Jose  with  the  obstacles  to  happiness  com 
pletely  externalized,  the  characters  being  given, 
and  exhibited  only  as  the  situation  calls  them 
forth.  At  a  point  long  before  the  close  of  The 
Undiscovered  Country  there  is  but  one  obstacle  to 
Ford's  happiness,  his  own  stupidity.  This  is  all 
that  need  be  said  about  the  weakness  of  some  of 
Howells '  characters.  They  are  subnormal  because 
in  the  absence  of  obstacles  to  overcome  it  requires 
subnormal  people  to  make  a  story.  An  older  in 
terpretation  made  Hamlet  insane ;  some  commen 
tators  still  find  his  tragedy  in  vacillation  and  de 
lay  ;  but  a  newer  and  stronger  reading  has  discov 
ered  the  heart  of  his  mystery  in  the  inexorable 
difficulty  of  his  position.  Howells  has  gained  much 
more  than  he  has  lost  through  his  natural  pre 
occupation  with  subjective  problems,  but  as  for 
vitiating  a  character  out  of  a  spirit  of  sheer  bra 
vado,  that  has  been  a  dead  loss.  We  do  not  judge 
The  Undiscovered  Country,  however,  by  the  in 
tellectual  worth  of  Ford,  who  is  after  all  a  minor 
adornment  to  the  tale. 

I  do  not  leave  this  large  group  of  novels  that  I 
have  elected  to  treat  as  transcripts  of  American 
life  without  a  disturbing  consciousness  of  having 
rendered  inadequate  tribute  to  the  national  spirit 
that  receives  expression  in  them.  Not  only  are 


218          William  Dean  Ho  wells 

they  the  product  of  a  mind  tireless  in  the  contem 
plation  of  the  national  life,  but  they  proceed  from 
a  heart  that  cherished  dearly  the  very  rudimen 
tary  principles  that  actuated  our  forefathers. 
They  constitute  the  only  large  and  significant 
body  of  fiction  inspired  by  the  spirit  of  American 
democracy.  The  social  problems  which  he  dealt 
with  very  simply  in  his  first  novel  never  ceased 
to  engage  his  attention;  and  although  he  never 
expressed  the  four  million  with  the  intimacy  of 
Mark  Twain  or  of  0.  Henry,  he  always  spoke  for 
them  and  tested  the  aristocracy  and  plutocracy 
which  have  taken  foothold  on  our  soil  by  the  prin 
ciples  of  liberty,  equality,  and  fraternity  for  which 
•  we  still  profess  to  stand. 

How  subtly  this  concern  for  the  equalities  has 
insinuated  itself  into  the  texture  of  his  theme, 
whether  that  theme  be  light  or  profound,  grave  or 
gay,  without  ever  disturbing  the  dramatic  range, 
and  without  any  dictatorial  airs,  is  nowhere  more 
evident  than  in  the  last  novel  that  we  are  to  have 
from  his  hand,  his  one  posthumous  work,  The 
Vacation  of  the  Kelwyns,  prepared  for  publica 
tion  ten  years  ago,  but  withheld  by  his  own  wish, 
from  motives  not  dissimilar  to  those  which  led  to 
the  suppression  of  Private  Theatricals.  In  The 
Vacation  of  the  Kelwyns,  which  comes  from  the 
press  as  I  write  (September,  1920),  sub-titled  An 
Idyl  of  the  Middle  Eighteen-Seventies, — to  be  pre 
cise,  the  Centennial  summer, — he  has  given  us 
primarily,  to  be  sure,  a  cool  but  eloquent  pastoral, 
playing  on  the  country  roadsides  near  a  commu 
nity  of  New  England  Shakers,  from  whom  the 
Kelwyns  have  taken  a  place  for  the  summer — a 


His  Fiction:  Transcripts  of  Life  219 

simple  chronicle  with  certain  colorful  distractions 
in  the  way  of  a  dancing  bear,  some  Gipsy  fortune 
tellers,  and  roving  organ-grinders,  together  with 
a  choice  of  less  picturesque  wayfarers;  a  chroni 
cle  into  which  is  deftly  woven  the  love  story  of 
Parthenope  Brook,  a  cousin  of  artistic  leanings, 
who  comes  out  to  visit  her  kinsfolk  and  to  acquire, 
if  possible,  a  "fresh  point  of  view."  But  How- 
ells,  in  his  own  serene  and  unobtrusive  way,  has 
made  these  quiet  materials  into  a  study  not  merely 
in  social  atmospheres  but  of  some  ever  puzzling 
though  rudimentary  problems  in  the  relations  be 
tween  the  social  orders.  We  see  in  the  first  place 
the  delicate  process  by  which  Parthenope 's  lover, 
a  young  man  of  dubious  social  and  vocational 
standing,  even  harboring  some  loose  if  not  hereti 
cal  notions  on  the  subject  of  private  property,  es 
tablishes  his  gentility.  He  is  the  visionary,  the 
experimenter — or,  as  he  holds  himself,  the  "em 
piricist  ' ' — that  Howells  always  loved  to  draw,  but 
so  nearly  a  "  gentleman "  from  the  beginning  that 
his  case  pales  in  interest  before  that  offered  by 
the  family  of  Kites,  who  have  been  engaged  to 
keep  the  house,  and  to  whom  the  farm  has  been 
sub-let.  The  Kelwyns,  imbued,  as  they  think 
themselves,  with  a  quite  unsentimental  passion  for 
fairness  in  their  dealings  with  their  "inferiors," 
find  the  lower  classes,  as  represented  by  the  Kites, 
of  an  unsuspected  and  disturbing  complexity,  and 
the  most  reasonable  and  simple  relations  with 
them  amazingly  difficult.  They  never  quite  achieve 
human  contact  with  them,  but  in  approximating 
such  contact  they  do  come  to  a  knowledge  and 
sympathy  to  which  they  have  hitherto  been 


22O          William  Dean  Howells 

strangers.  And  Professor  Kelwyn  himself, 
whose  business  is  to  give  graduate  lectures  on  his 
torical  sociology,  discovers  many  valuable  things 
not  taken  account  of  in  his  "studies  of  the  con 
ditions/*  and  arrives  as  a  result  of  his  vacation 
at  a  clearer  understanding  of  the  sociology  of  the 
present. 


vn 

HIS  FICTION:  STUDIES  IN  ETHICS 

IT  is  a  somewhat  heretical  and  arbitrary  pro 
cedure  to  select  a  comparatively  small  group  of 
Ho  wells'  novels  as  his  contribution  to  the  subjects 
of  social  and  political  ethics.  In  the  totality  of  his 
work  as  well  as  in  the  supreme  reaches  of  his  art, 
he  has  fulfilled  the  promise  of  his  critical  message, 
with  its  indissoluble  fusion  of  ethics  and  aesthetics. 
Among  his  stories,  however,  though  they  are  all  of 
a  substance,  those  which  reverberate  most  loudly 
to  the  voice  of  duty,  those  in  which  the  characters 
live  in  eternal  questioning  of  the  rightness  or 
wrongness  of  their  actions,  are  the  ones  which  will 
live  as  pictures  of  our  society,  as  transcripts  of 
manners  rather  than  studies  in  human  character. 
In  Ragged  Lady,  for  example,  the  conscience  prob 
lem  is  handled  in  a  specialized  condition  and  an 
essentially  picturesque  aspect,  while  in  The  Son 
of  Royal  Langbrith  the  matter  for  all  its  local 
coloring  is  most  compelling  in  its  universal  appli 
cability.  The  questions  of  human  happiness  in  the 
latter  novel  will  continue  to  enlist  the  efforts  of 
readers  at  solution,  while  the  difficulties  in  the  for 
mer,  when  they  are  not  indeed  phantoms  fought 
by  the  characters  alone,  are  readily  settled  in  the 
mind  of  the  humane  observer.  Likewise,  though 
the  ideal  of  democracy  constantly  guided  his  pen, 

221 


222  William  Dean  Howells 

which  limned  in  so  relentlessly  the  blemishes  upon 
the  face  of  our  national  life,  a  distinction  may  be 
drawn  between  the  delineation  of  aristocratic  in 
solence  and  the  less  entertaining  but  more  seri 
ously  promulgated  preaching  of  social  equality. 

The  two  themes  are  scarcely  separable  in  How- 
ells'  novels.  Their  alliance  in  genesis  is  espe 
cially  close,  some  of  the  New  England  moralists 
having  exchanged  their  personal  daemons  for  a 
race  conscience,  or,  in  the  most  unhappy  cases, 
having  rather  illogically  retained  the  problem  of 
their  own  souls'  salvation  while  shouldering  the 
Hburdens  of  all  humanity.  In  the  New  York  novels, 
A  Hazard  of  New  Fortunes  (1889)  and  The  World 
of  Chance  (1893),  we  emerge  into  a  clearer  atmos 
phere,  where  the  advanced  ethical  conceptions,  for 
which  in  the  New  England  novels  ministers  of  the 
gospel  stand  spokesmen,  are  mouthed  by  vener 
able  and  eccentric  socialists.  But  already  in  Annie 
Kilburn  (1888)  the  point  had  been  made  clearly; 
perhaps  Howells  never  made  it  more  dramatically, 
and  with  a  preacher  for  a  hero ! 

The  Minister's  Charge  (1887)  is  best  considered 
here  because,  like  Annie  Kilburn,  it  is  strictly  of 
the  Eobert  Elsmere  and  Mark  Eutherford  period. 
It  belongs  in  this  group,  however,  only  because  it 
poses  the  social  problem  in  its  religious  aspect. 
Otherwise,  it  is  to  be  classified  with  Ragged  Lady 
as  a  picture  of  religious  conditions  and  a  drama 
of  weaklings.  In  Annie  Kilburn  we  have  charac 
ters  of  relatively  superior  intelligence.  The 
tragedy  of  its  protagonist,  the  Eeverend  Mr.  Peck, 
lies  in  the  victory  of  his  humanitarianism  over  his 
orthodoxy,  while  the  Eeverend  Mr.  Sewell  of  The 


His  Fiction:  Studies  in  Ethics     223 

Minister's  Charge,  who  will  be  remembered  by 
readers  of  Silas  Lapham,  has  Mrs.  Sewell  always 
at  hand  to  keep  him  in  the  straight  and  narrow 
path.  The  consciousness  of  being  his  brother 'B 
keeper  works  in  his  soul  an  awful  and  ineffectual 
spell.  And  to  this  obfuscation  of  brain  is  added 
a  natural  lack  of  talent  for  practical  helpfulness 
and  a  charge  stupidly  and  stubbornly  opposed 
to  being  helped,  the  combination  resulting  in 
some  ludicrous  applications  of  the  principle  he 
preached,  "that  no  one  for  good  or  for  evil,  for 
sorrow  or  joy,  for  sickness  or  health,  stood  apart 
from  his  fellows,  but  each  was  bound  to  the  high 
est  and  lowest  by  ties  that  centered  in  the  hand 
of  God."1 

Howells  achieved  one  of  his  most  astonishing 
triumphs  in  the  fascination  he  contrived  to  bring 
out  of  this  clergyman's  intellectual  history.  The 
most  fascinating  thing  about  Sewell  is  perhaps 
the  worst  thing  to  be  held  against  him — his  devo 
tion  to  his  wife.  There  is  something  positively 
dreadful  in  the  circumstance  that  his  responsi 
bility  for  Lemuel  is  undertaken  against  her  better 
judgment,  when  he  praises  some  verses  the  coun 
try  lad  has  written.  So  much  are  we  our  brothers' 
keepers  that  thereupon  Mr.  Sewell  's  is  the  blame 
that  Lemuel  comes  to  Boston,  lighted  by  false 
fires,  and  has  all  his  dreadful  experiences  there. 
Lemuel's  notions  of  social  equality  are  as  eccen 
tric  as  his  guardian's;  his  sense  of  guilt  as  un 
usual.  And  he  seems  to  share  Helen  Harkness' 
antipathy  to  money,  along  with  other  "fine  sensi 
bilities."  He  loses  appetite  and  starts  into  a  de- 

*The  Minister's  Charge  (1887),  p.  458. 


224          William  Dean  Howells 

cline  after  kissing  a  young  girl,  feeling  himself 
"  guilty  of  an  enormity  that  nothing  could  ever 
excuse. ' '  2  Yet  Lemuel,  for  all  his  smug  and  pious 
ways,  has  his  qualities.  Mr.  Alexander  Harvey 
indeed  thinks  that  in  him  Howells  unwittingly 
drew  a  genius.  Bromfield  Corey,  whom  readers 
of  Silas  LapJiam  again  will  remember  as  the  aris 
tocratic  amateur  of  the  arts,  and  with  whom  Lem 
uel  secures  a  position  as  reader,  is  exceedingly 
drawn  to  him,  and  exclaims,  after  his  disappear 
ance:  "All  my  moral  and  intellectual  being  has 
stopped  like  a  watch. ' ' 8 

Annie  Kilburn  is  a  simpler,  bolder,  and,  I  think, 
a  more  wholesome  depiction  of  the  decline  of  or 
thodoxy.  The  New  England  conscience  lives  on  in 
Annie,  but  with  a  sea-change,  for  she  has  taken 
her  Italy  not  in  a  volcanic  but  ineffectual  revolt 
against  herself,  as  Grace  Breen  took  hers,  but 
easily  and  naturally  in  an  eleven  years '  residence 
abroad  with  her  father.  She  returns  to  her  native 
land  a  Puritan  still,  but  a  Puritan  accessible  to 
new  ideas,  and  finds  South  Hatboro'  electric  with 
them.  In  the  efforts  of  the  Keverend  Mr.  Peck, 
the  new  religion  of  social  service,  whose  premoni 
tory  symptoms  were  such  an  agitation  in  the  soul 
of  David  Sewell,  is  finding  its  expression,  and  an 
organization  for  social  "  betterment "  known  as 
the  Social  Union  is  on  foot.  But  the  two  forces 
are  not  at  all  in  accord,  Mr.  Peck,  with  his  ideal  of 
social  equality,  being  presently  brought  into  ac 
tive  conflict  with  the  Union,  with  its  old  ideal  of 
charity,  which  does  so  little  beyond  confirming  the 

a  The  Minister's  Charge  (1887),  p.  167. 
•Ibid.,  p.  430. 


His  Fiction:  Studies  in  Ethics     225 

rich  in  their  vanity  and  snobbishness  and  the  poor 
in  their  discontent.  Annie,  who  wants  to  do  good 
with  her  money,  finds  her  natural  alliance  with  the 
Union,  and  is  made,  even  as  all  Hatboro',  ex 
tremely  uncomfortable  by  Mr.  Peck.  She  cannot 
see  the  impossibility  of  friendly  intercourse  be 
tween  the  poor  and  their  benefactors,  having  often 
heard  her  father  say  "that  the  great  superiority 
of  the  American  practice  of  democracy  over  the 
French  ideal  was  that  it  didn't  involve  any  as 
sumption  of  social  equality. ' ' 4  She  demands  of 
Mr.  Peck: 

"Then  you  mean  to  say  that  people  can't  do 
any  good  at  all  with  their  money  f " 

"Money  is  a  palliative,  but  it  can't  cure.  It 
can  sometimes  create  a  bond  of  gratitude  perhaps, 
but  it  can't  create  sympathy  between  rich  and 
poor." 

"But  why  can't  it?" 

'  *  Because  sympathy  —  common  feeling  —  can 
spring  only  from  like  experiences,  like  hopes,  like 
fears.  And  money  can't  buy  these."  5 

Injured  orthodoxy  and  commercialism  have 
their  most  interesting  protagonist  in  Mr.  Gerrish, 
who  will  appear  again  in  The  Quality  of  Mercy. 
His  arraignment  of  the  minister  after  his  fatal 
sermon  on  the  Union  theatricals  is  a  masterly 
disquisition,  fully  to  be  appreciated  only  by  those 
acquainted  with  Mr.  Gerrish : 

"Understand  me,  sir,  we  do  not  object,  neither 
I  nor  any  of  those  who  agree  with  me,  to  the 

*  Annie  Killurn  (1888),  p.  64. 
6  Ibid.,  p.  65. 


226          William  Dean  Howells 

preaching  of  Christ  as  a  life.  That  is  all  very 
well  in  its  place,  and  it  is  the  wish  of  every  true 
Christian  to  conform  and  adapt  his  own  fife  as 
far  as — as  circumstances  will  permit  of.  But 
when  I  come  to  this  sanctuary,  and  they  come, 
Sabbath  after  Sabbath,  and  hear  nothing  said  of 
my  Redeemer  as  a — means  of  salvation,  and  noth 
ing  of  Him  crucified ;  and  when  I  find  the  precious 
promises  of  the  gospel  ignored  and  neglected 
continually  and — and  all  the  time,  and  each  dis 
course  from  yonder  pulpit  filled  up  with  generali 
ties — glittering  generalities,  as  has  been  well  said 
by  another — in  relation  to  and  connection  with 
mere  conduct,  I  am  disappointed,  sir,  and  dissat 
isfied,  and  I  feel  to  protest  against  that  line  of — 
of  preaching. ' '  6 

In  A  Hazard  of  New  Fortunes  (1889),  Howells 
transfers  his  scene  to  New  York  and  spreads  an 
epical  canvas.  The  longest  and  most  complicated 
of  his  novels,  it  has  nevertheless  proved  one  of 
the  most  popular,  and  justly  so.  A  vital  reason 
for  his  success  with  it  lies  in  the  fact  that  he  has 
furnished  himself  for  the  first  time  with  materials 
lavish  enough  for  the  easy  and  natural  attainment 
of  that  loose  and  ample  structure  which  he  so 
admires  in  the  work  of  Zola  and  the  elder  Span 
iards.  Except  in  The  Landlord  at  Lion's  Head 
he  was  hardly  again  to  fulfill  his  own  formula  so 
perfectly,  although  he  has  rather  exceeded  the 
prescription  in  the  matter  of  action,  the  moral 
regeneration  of  Dryfoos,  the  capitalist,  being 
brought  about  by  the  violent  death  of  his  son 
Conrad.  The  vast  number  of  personages  who 

*  Annie  Kilburn,  (1888),  p.  273. 


His  Fiction:  Studies  in  Ethics     227 

share  its  events,  their  destinies  united  now  by 
slender  threads  and  now  by  bonds  of  steel,  enable 
him  to  convey  better  than  he  has  elsewhere  been 
able  to  convey  it,  that  feeling  for  life's  confusion 
and  complexity  which  has  ever  engaged  his  ar 
tistic  sense. 

Such  a  condition,  furthermore,  is  as  happy  for 
the  polemic  interests  of  the  book  as  for  the  ar 
tistic.  It  affords  a  natural  escape  from  the  senti 
mental  mood,  perhaps  the  prevailing  mood  of  so 
ciological  fiction,  which  limits  the  end  of  so  much 
humanitarian  writing  to  making  well-to-do  people 
vaguely  uncomfortable,  which  makes  such  an  in 
nocent  production  as  Galsworthy's  Pigeon  more 
depressing  to  many  minds  than  the  ghastly  tales 
Arthur  Morrison  tells  of  Mean  Streets.  Howells 
is  ordinarily  most  in  danger  of  excessive  sympa 
thy  and  futile  musing  when  his  ordinary,  well- 
to-do,  somewhat  sensitive  people  are  able  to  mo 
nopolize  the  foreground.  Accordingly,  it  is  sig 
nificant  for  the  present  work  that  the  Marches, 
ostensibly  the  central  figures,  are  lost  in  the 
welter.  They  are  brought  to  New  York  for  the 
purpose  of  reacting  to  the  social  and  economic 
cruelties  of  metropolitan  life,  and  obediently  come 
' '  to  excel  in  the  sad  knowledge  of  the  line  at  which 
respectability  distinguishes  itself  from  shabbi- 
ness,"7  and  to  suffer  at  the  sights  they  see  in 
tenement  streets;  but  they  are  forced  into  their 
proper  place  in  the  picture  by  the  multiplicity  of 
more  interesting  and  more  rugged  types. 

From  these  characters,  limned  with  a  virile 
touch,  there  is,  however,  an  omission  of  represen- 

1 A  Hazard  of  New* Fortunes  (1891),  vol.  I,  p.  71. 


228          William  Dean  Howells 

tatives  of  the  very  low  classes, — at  least  in  very 
unfortunate  circumstances, — an  omission  that  will 
strike  the  reader  of  later  sociological  fiction  as  a 
deficiency  of  Howells '  view  of  our  society.  This 
objection  he  explained  away  in  a  manner  very 
similar  to  that  in  which  he  disposed  of  the  sex 
problems  of  the  Continental  novel,  remarking  on 
one  occasion,  I  believe,  that  New  York  could  not 
furnish  Dostoievsky  with  the  materials  of  his 
preference.  There  may  at  the  time  have  been 
something  to  say  for  this,  but  less,  I  suspect,  than 
for  the  sexual  argument.  At  any  rate,  the  sub 
jects  meet  with  a  very  unequal  disposition  in  his 
own  fictions.  Howells  did  not  like  to  depict  ir 
regular  sexual  relations,  and  he  did  not  like  to  de 
pict  humanity  unwashed.  But  he  did  love  hu 
manity  in  whatever  condition;  so,  while  guilty 
lovers  are  banished  utterly  from  his  stage,  the 
great  unwashed  cry  incessantly  behind  the  scenes. 
They  have  able  spokesmen  in  characters  like  the 
venerable  German  socialist  Lindau  and  the  ' '  bour 
geois  intellectual, "  Conrad  Dryfoos,  but  they 
themselves  do  not  appear,  at  least  in  any  very 
painful  guise.  The  author  shrinks  with  Basil 
March  from  concrete  suffering,  and  asks  us  to  shed 
tears  over  the  general  fact  that  people  are  hungry. 
He  is  willing  to  leave  us,  after  we  have  actually 
seen  a  poor  wretch  pick  a  crust  from  the  gutter,  in 
the  belief  with  which  March  consoled  his  wife, 
that  it  was  after  all  only  a  mendicant's  ruse  for 
eliciting  sympathy.  This  is  more  discomforting 
than  a  knowledge  of  the  fact  would  be.  By  sacri 
ficing  such  aloofness  from  the  unpleasant  and 
boldly  descending  into  the  depths  of  degradation 


His  Fiction:  Studies  in  Ethics    229 

he  could  here  and  there  have  put  a  note  of  cheer 
into  his  message,  a  note  of  hope;  for,  as  he  so 
often  told  us,  there  is  consolation  and  delight  in 
the  truth,  and  only  in  the  truth. 

He  also  told  us  that  in  its  apostleship  to  the 
lowly,  realism  inherits  the  better  part  of  romanti 
cism.  "The  romantic  spirit, "  he  noted  long  ago, 
"worshipped  genius,  worshipped  heroism,  but  at 
its  best,  in  such  a  man  as  Victor  Hugo,  this  spirit 
recognized  the  supreme  claim  of  the  lowest  hu 
manity.  Its  error  was  to  idealize  the  victims  of 
society,  to  paint  them  impossibly  virtuous  and 
beautiful;  but  truth,  which  has  succeeded  to  the 
highest  mission  of  romance,  paints  these  as  they 
are,  and  bids  the  world  consider  them  not  because 
they  are  beautiful  and  virtuous,  but  because  they 
are  ugly  and  vicious,  cruel,  filthy,  and  only  not 
altogether  loathsome  because  the  divine  can  never 
wholly  die  out  of  the  human. ' ' 8  Howells  has  not 
indeed  painted  the  victims  of  society  as  beautiful 
and  virtuous,  but  neither  has  he  shown  their 
viciousness,  their  cruelty,  and  their  filthiness.  He 
has  not  revealed  how  the  spark  of  the  divine 
smoulders  in  places  dark  and  vile.  He  gave  those 
places  a  more  searching  scrutiny  than  did  the 
fathers  of  humamtarianism,  but  he  recoiled  from 
them  in  the  end,  thus  impersonalizing  his  view  of 
the  lower  ranks,  inducing  a  general  and  unlocal- 
ized  pain,  a  hatred  of  all  suffering  whatsoever,  a 
feeling  that  is  only  less  in  degree  than  that  which 
one  gets  from  the  writings  of  Mr.  John  Galswor 
thy,  not  different  from  it  in  kind.  This  is  a  feel 
ing  that  Dostoievsky,  for  example,  never  conveys. 

9  Criticism  and  Fiction  (1893),  p.  185. 


230          William  Dean  Howells 

This  should  not  concern  us  as  a  limitation  of 
subject  matter,  but  as  a  condition  that  enfeebles 
his  depiction  of  certain  subjects  when  he  insists 
upon  treating  them.  It  always  happens  when  a 
reformer  is  touched  by  griefs  and  aspirations  into 
which  he  cannot  fully  enter.  It  means  a  double 
accusation  of  the  social  system,  and  its  effect  is 
to  shake  one's  faith  in  the  efficacy  of  individual 
effort.  A  burden  is  thrown  upon  corporate  so 
ciety  such  as  Victor  Hugo  never  contemplated. 
We  become  our  brother's  keeper  not  merely  in  the 
sense  that  branded  the  first  murderer,  but  in  a 
sense  that  would  make  Abel  responsible  for  his 
own  fate. 

That  the  only  tenable  ideal  of  a  perfect  society 
is  one  in  which  all  stand  equal  before  each  other 
and  before  their  God,  is  a  fact  that  no  one  living  in 
our  century  should  deny ;  but  it  is  equally  true  that 
such  an  ideal  will  not  be  realized  in  our  century 
nor  for  many  to  come.  We  can  accept  it  but  as  the 
far  goal  toward  which  the  democratic  spirit  is 
gradually  bringing  the  race.  No  one  knew  better 
than  Howells  that  it  could  be  reached  only  by  a 
slow  evolution,  a  struggle  cheerfully  and  joyously 
to  be  waged.  In  an  essay  on  equality  as  the  only 
tenable  basis  of  good  society,  he  makes  it  clear 
that  the  world  is  growing  better  for  the  very 
reason  that  we  have  more  and  more  of  that  good 
society  which  does  not  take  a  shabby  pleasure  in 
inequality,  but  which  finds  its  satisfaction  in  get 
ting  on  common  ground  with  others.  "As  nearly 
as  we  can  conceive  it  or  forecast  it,"  he  says,  "the 
new  condition,  the  equality  of  the  future,  will  be 
the  enlargement  of  good  society  to  the  whole  of 


His  Fiction:  Studies  in  Ethics    231 

humanity.  This  seems  to  me  so  not  only  because, 
so  far  as  we  have  social  equality,  it  has  grown  out 
of  human  nature,  but  because  we  have  already 
more  of  that  equality  than  any  other. " 9  In  this 
natural  and  optimistic  view  his  discouragement  is 
unreasonable,  and  his  reflection  on  individual  ef 
fort  especially  dangerous.  The  enlargement  of 
good  society  to  all  humanity  being  so  transpar 
ently  conditioned  by  the  spiritual  growth  of  indi 
viduals,  of  which  legislation  can  only  be  the  ulti 
mate  expression,  it  is  idle  to  declare  that  society  is 
cruel  and  unnatural  because  it  is  obviously  imper 
fect,  or  to  lament  that  men  are  not  free  and  equal. 
Why,  then,  in  the  same  essay,  should  he  be  dis 
turbed  by  the  man  who  stands  behind  his  chair  at 
dinner,  or  by  the  richer  man  who  sits  across  the 
table?  It  is  for  essentially  the  same  reason  that 
the  Eeverend  Mr.  Peck  is  taken  off  by  a  railroad 
accident  the  moment  it  becomes  imminent  that 
either  his  ideas  or  those  of  his  parishioners  must 
prevail.  For  the  same  reason  Mr.  Wallace  Ardith 
in  Letters  Home  is  pitied  for  the  misery  he 
causes  even  more  than  his  victim — because  How- 
ells  was  a  sensitive  personality,  and  even  as  other 
popular  and  philosophic  reformers,  became  fright 
ened  at  the  notion  of  holding  the  individual  re 
sponsible  for  either  good  or  evil.  It  is  so  con 
venient  to  lay  everything  at  the  door  of  that  great 
ogre,  Society. 

Thus  Howells  as  a  social  philosopher  suffers  in      ' 
much  the  same  manner  that  he  suffers  as  a  theo 
rist  of  criticism,  through  minimizing  the  value  of 


8  "Equality  as  the  Basis  of   Good  Society,"   in  the   Century 
(1895),  29:67. 


232          William  Dean  Howells 

individual  achievement.  The  reader  may  recall 
the  odd  figure  to  which  his  attention  was  directed 
in  a  previous  chapter — that  of  a  critic  industri 
ously  engaged  in  expounding  literature  through 
the  decades,  but  at  the  same  time  largely  con 
cerned  in  maintaining  the  futility  of  such  employ 
ment.  We  here  find  him  zealous  in  another  cause 
dear  to  his  heart,  and  in  a  like  manner  discarding 
the  instrument  of  its  prosecution.  Strange  figure 
of  a  perfectibilian  harassed  by  doubts  as  to  the 
perfectibility  of  the  human  soul! 

He  ought  to  be  more  greatly  inspired  even  by 
the  tragic  efforts  put  forth  by  the  personages  of 
his  creation.  The  really  ardent  reformers  in  his 
novels  all  die  ineffectual  deaths,  most  of  them 
violent  deaths.  In  their  taking  off  the  gentle 
Conrad  Dryfoos  and  the  patriarchal  Lindau  of 
A  Hazard  of  New  Fortunes  bear  the  benediction 
^>f  martyrdom,  but  Ansel  Denton  in  The  World 
i/  Chance  perishes  by  his  own  hand  in  a  delirium 
Brought  on  by  his  obsession  with  socialistic  no 
tions.  In  his  work  as  engraver,  he  has  hit  upon 
an  invention,  a  new  art  process  that  will  make 
him  rich.  He  obeys  the  inner  voice  and  destroys 
his  work  through  fear  that  it  will  throw  some 
other  engravers  out  of  work,  but  the  sacrifice  is 
not  enough.  Some  innocent  life  must  be  paid  in 
expiation  of  the  crime;  but,  frustrate  in  his  at 
tempt  to  take  that  of  his  sister-in-law,  Peace 
Hughes,  he  ends  his  own  guilty  one  with  prussic 
acid — the  most  lurid  scene  in  all  Howells'  pages. 
And  it  is  made  perfectly  clear  that  the  more  in 
telligent  efforts  of  his  father-in-law  come  to  no 
more  fruitful,  though  a  more  peaceful  end. 


His  Fiction:  Studies  in  Ethics    233 

The  exoneration  of  the  individual  and  the  attri 
bution  of  his  misdeeds  to  the  social  order,  an 
order  which  individual  effort  seems  powerless  to 
better,  is  the  underlying  purpose  of  The-  Quality 
of  Mercy  (1892).  On  the  whole  an  impressive 
chronicle,  with  it's  searching  and  implacable  in 
quiry  after  the  far-reaching  consequences  of  its 
hero's  crime,  it  nevertheless  offends  more  gravely 
than  either  The  World  of  Chance  or  A  Hazard 
of  New  Fortunes  in  the  certainty  with  which  its 
author  feels  able  to  fix  the  responsibility.  North- 
wick,  the  absconding  defaulter,  is  represented  as 
a  man  with  instincts  toward  the  highest  integrity, 
but  cast  into  a  world  where  supposedly  honorable 
men  very  frequently  take  other  people's  money 
and  find  themselves  unable  to  pay  it  backi  By 
early  training  he  believes  in  the  moral  govern 
ment  of  the  universe,  and  thus,  from  the  religious 
point  of  view,  is  presented  as  a  horrible  example 
of  the  futility  of  that  belief  as  a  guide  to  conduct. 
The  whole  trouble  with  him  is  an  environment 
which  makes  his  sort  of  robbery  possible.  Says 
Matt  Hilary,  the  softest  of  the  tribe  of  millionaire 
socialists  whom  Howells  called  into  being: 
"Northwick  isn't  the  disease;  he's  merely  the 
symptom."10  And  Putney:  "He  was  a  mere 
creature  of  circumstances — like  the  rest  of  us! 
His  environment  made  him  rich,  and  his  environ 
ment  made  him  a  rogue.  Sometimes  I  think  there 
was  nothing  to  Northwick,  except  what  happened 
to  him."  n  And  thus  the  matter  is  developed  at 
great  length  by  Maxwell,  the  philosophic  journal- 

"The  Quality  of  Mercy  (1892),  p.  166. 
11  Ibid.,  p.  474. 


234          William  Dean  Howells 

1st  of  the  Abstract,  who  is  done  as  a  foil  to 
Bartley  Hubbard  of  the  flashy  and  vulgar  Events. 
The  message  of  The  Quality  of  Mercy,  aside  from 
its  multitude  of  faithful  and  painstaking  sub 
sidiary  studies,  is  that  the  social  body  is  sick; 
but  Howells  is  its  anatomist,  not  its  physician. 

After  all,  the  social  conscience  displays  most 
of  the  phenomena  exhibited  in  the  operation  of 
the  personal  variety.  The  race  conscience  hyper- 
sesthetized  to  a  degree  precluding  the  execution  of 
immediate  duties  to  oneself  and  one's  own,  is, 
more  perfectly  than  Howells  has  indicated  in 
these  works,  the  analogue  of  the  personal  con 
science  which  tortured  the  Puritan  on  his  pillow, 
and  which  is  so  hateful  to  him.  One  cannot  but 
wish  that  he  had  sympathized  with  it  less  keenly, 
and  been  more  critical  of  its  excesses  and  mor 
bidities. 

The  Utopian  romance,  A  Traveler  from  Altruria 
(1894),  is  as  definitely  of  its  epoch  as  Annie 
Kilburn  (1888),  though  it  followed  Bellamy's 
Looking  Backward  (1888),  in  which  Howells  was 
greatly  interested,  after  a  number  of  years,  while 
Annie  Kilburn  was  strictly  coeval  with  Robert 
Elsmere  (1888).  This  romance  and  its  much  later 
sequel,  Through  the  Eye  of  the  Needle  (1907), 
still  make  delightful  reading,  since  they  enclose 
with  the  repertoire,  of  current  banalities  the  most 
exquisite  portraits  of  their  sponsors,  and  give 
rein  to  the  sort  of  argumentative  fantasy  which 
enlivens  The  Seen  and  Unseen  at  Stratford-on- 
Avon,  a  diversion  at  which  our  author  has  scarcely 
been  approached.  At  work  of  this  kind  he  is 
always  in  the  vein,  and  never  permits  the  argu- 


His  Fiction:  Studies  in  Ethics    235 

ment  to  spoil  the  fun.  He  cleverly  forestalls 
criticism  on  the  platitudinous  character  of  his 
ideal  state  by  introducing  at  the  lecture  of  the 
distinguished  voyageur,  Mr.  Aristides  Homos  of 
Altruria,  a  professor  of  economics,  who  is  prompt 
to  a  marvel  in  pointing  out  the  borrowings  from 
Plato,  More,  Bacon,  Campanella,  Bellamy,  and 
William  Morris. 

If  A  Traveler  from  Altruria  emphasizes  any 
feature  of  Howells'  complaint  against  American 
conditions  better  than  the  novels,  it  is  his  wonder 
ment  at  the  apathy  of  the  poor,  who  have  the 
remedial  agency  at  hand  by  which  the  Altrurians 
saved  themselves  alive  from  the  tentacles  of  plu 
tocracy  —  the  ballot.  "If  the  poor  American/' 
/  he  maintained  in  an  essay  of  about  the  same  time 
as  the  Traveler,  "does  not  like  it,  or  if  he  does 
not  prefer  a  plutocracy  to  a  democracy,  he  has 
the  affair  in  his  own  hands,  for  he  has  an  over 
whelming  majority  of  the  votes.  ...  If  we  have 
a  plutocracy,  it  may  be  partly  because  the  rich 
want  it,  but  it  is  infinitely  more  because  the  poor 
choose  it  or  allow  it."  12  Which  ought  to  suggest 
a  closer  examination  of  how  it  came  about  that 
the  Altrurians  did  not  allow  it,  for  he  has  taken 
great  pains  to  draw  the  parallel  perfectly  between 
Altrurian  and  American  conditions. 

The  Altrurians,  like  the  inhabitants  of  most 
visionary  states,  are  palpably  of  a  different  clay 
from  the  humanity  with  which  we  have  to  deal. 
It  is  unnecessary  to  inquire  whether  or  not  their 
government  would  be  desirable  for  America,  since 


We  a  Plutocracy?"   in  the  North  American  Eeview 
(1894),  158:196. 


236          William  Dean  Howells 

it  would  in  any  event  be  impossible.  A  helpful 
social  philosophy  will  show  not  the  vision  of  a 
New  Jerusalem,  but  the  steps  by  which  it  was 
attained.  Such  a  philosophy  will  be  bound  to  re 
gard  aristocracy  as  an  inevitable  stage  in  the 
progress  of  civilization,  not  as  something  un 
natural  to  be  swept  away;  but  it  will  not  be  so 
short-sighted  as  to  conclude  that  in  view  of  the 
past  service  of  aristocracy,  we  must  have  it  al 
ways.  In  such  a  rational  view,  the  duties  of  so 
ciety  to  the  individual  will  cease  to  appear  anti 
thetic  to  the  responsibilities  of  the  individual  for 
himself  and  to  the  society  of  which  he  is  a  part. 
The  ideal  order  will  be  offered  as  an  ideal,  not  as 
a  standard  of  comparison.  As  an  ideal  it  spells 
hope,  but  as  a  present  necessity  it  invites  despair. 
A  profitable  voyage  imaginaire  would  lead  its 
reader  to  decrease  his  faith  in  the  millennium  and 
reconceive  his  notion  of  present  efficacy.  Such 
a  reconception  would  not  reveal  in  the  social  and 
economic  world  the  operation  of  laws  so  exactly 
definable  as  those  of  the  material  world,  but  it 
would  bring  some  order  out  of  the  chaos  of  The 
World  of  Chance.13  Basil  March,  in  A  Hazard  of 
New  Fortunes,  seems  to  voice  Howells'  desire : 

13  * '  Life  is  never  the  logical  and  consequent  thing  we  argue 
from  the  moral  and  intellectual  premises.  There  ought  always 
to  be  evident  reason  in  it;  but  such  reason  as  it  has  is  often 
crossed  and  obscured  by  perverse  events,  which,  in  our  brief 
perspective,  give  it  the  aspect  of  a  helpless  craze.  Obvious 
effect  does  not  follow  obvious  cause;  there  is  sometimes  no 
perceptible  cause  for  the  effects  we  see.  The  law  that  we  find 
at  work  in  the  material  world  is,  apparently,  absent  from  the 
moral  world;  not,  imaginably,  because  it  is  without  law,  but 
because  the  law  is  of  such  cosmical  vastness  in  its  operation 
that  it  is  only  once  or  twice  sensible  to  any  man's  experience. 
The  seasons  come  and  go  in  orderly  course,  but  the  incidents  of 
human  life  have  not  the  orderly  procession  of  the  seasons;  so 


His  Fiction:  Studies  in  Ethics    237 


( t 


But  what  I  object  to  is  this  economic  chance- 
world  in  which  we  live,  and  which  we  men  seem  to 
have  created.  It  ought  to  be  law  as  inflexible  in 
human  affairs  as  the  order  of  day  and  night  in  the 
physical  world,  that  if  a  man  will  work  he  shall 
both  rest  and  eat,  and  shall  not  be  harassed  with 
any  question  as  to  how  his  repose  and  his  provi 
sion  shall  come.  Nothing  less  ideal  than  this  satis 
fies  the  reason."14 

After  Mr.  March  has  proceeded  to  some  length 
with  a  dismal  picture  of  the  capricious  world  we 
have  created  and  maintain,  his  wife  suggests  that 
matters  would  be  less  uncertain  were  people  not 
so  greedy  and  so  foolish.  "Oh,  without  doubt !" 
admits  Mr.  March.  "We  can't  put  it  all  on  the 
conditions;  we  must  put  some  of  the  blame  on 
character. ' ' 

"But  conditions  make  character;  and  people  are 
greedy  and  foolish,  and  wish  to  have  and  to  shine, 
because  having  and  shining  are  held  up  to  them  by 
civilization  as  the  chief  good  of  life.  We  all  know 
they  are  not  the  chief  good,  perhaps  not  good  at 
all ;  but  if  some  one  ventures  to  say  so,  all  the  rest 
of  us  call  him  a  fraud  and  a  crank,  and  go  moiling 
and  toiling  on  to  the  palace  or  the  poor-house. 
We  can't  help  it.  If  one  were  less  greedy,  or  less 
foolish,  some  one  else  would  have,  and  would  shine 
at  his  expense.  We  don't  moil  and  toil  to  our 
selves  alone;  the  palace  or  the  poor-house  is  not 
merely  for  ourselves,  but  for  our  children,  whom 

far  as  the  sages  or  the  saints  are  able  convincingly  to  affirm,  they 
have  only  the  capricious  vicissitudes  of  weather. ' ' — The  Son  of 
Royal  Langbrith  (1904),  p.  282. 
14  A  Hazard  of  New  Fortunes  (1891),  vol.  II,  p.  252. 


238          William  Dean  Howells 

we've  brought  up  in  the  superstition  that  having 
and  shining  is  the  chief  good.  We  dare  not  teach 
them  otherwise,  for  fear  they  may  falter  in  the 
fight,  when  it  comes  their  turn;  and  the  children 
of  others  will  crowd  them  out  of  the  palace  into 
the  poor-house.  If  we  felt  sure  that  honest  work 
shared  by  all  would  bring  them  honest  food  shared 
by  all,  some  heroic  few  of  us,  who  did  not  wish  our 
children  to  rise  above  their  fellows — though  we 
could  not  bear  to  have  them  fall  below — might 
trust  them  with  the  truth.  But  we  have  no  such 
assurance;  and  so  we  go  on  trembling  before 
Dryfooses,  and  living  in  gimcrackeries."15 

Howells  has  shown  us  very  few  of  the  people 
who  do  not  tremble  before  Dryfooses  and  do  not 
live  in  gimcrackeries,  presumably  because  they 
are  not  representative  of  our  civilization.  Those 
who  in  his  novels  wage  war  on  Dryfooses  and 
gimcrackeries  do  so  for  the  most  part  in  the 
Utopian  manner.  Impatient  of  the  slow  processes 
of  racial  enlightenment,  they  offer  us  perfection 
or  nothing — and  fail.  They  are  perhaps  the  na 
tional  types,  but  it  is  greatly  to  be  feared  that 
their  author  leaned  toward  them  as  he  did  not 
lean  toward  his  aristocrats  and  Puritans,  and  that 
he  himself  from  time  to  time  found  discourage 
ment  in  the  fact  that  human  effort  does  not  work 
with  the  precision  of  a  mechanical  or  a  chemical 
process,  as  Altrurian  effort  does.  He  killed  the 
Eeverend  Mr.  Peck  and  allowed  the  Reverend  Mr. 
Sewell  to  live  on.  The  recrudescence  of  the  his 
torical  romance  in  which  the  last  century  closed 
caused  him  to  despair  for  literature,  although  the 

18  A  Hazard  of  New  Fortunes  (1891),  vol.  II,  p.  253. 


His  Fiction:  Studies  in  Ethics     239 

infection  was  losing  its  hold  when  he  spoke,  and 
quickly  subsided.  He  doubted  the  influence  of 
his  father's  newspaper,  almost  the  sole  intel- 
lectu^al  force  operating  in  his  community. 

In  the  domain  of  personal  ethics,  he  always 
breathes  a  more  inspiriting  message ;  for  if  amid 
the  destruction  and  the  chaos  through  which  the 
race  of  men  are  struggling  toward  brotherhood 
the  God  of  Israel  slumbers,  man  finds  consolation 
and  reward  in  being  true  to  himself.  However 
irrational  the  moral  government  of  the  universe 
may  appear,  the  fact  of  sin  remains  with  us,  and 
the  "agency  which  we  must  still  call  'God'  pun 
ishes  it."  16  Howells  used  "that  quaint  old  word 
'sin/  which  has  almost  dropped  out  of  our  vocab 
ulary,  with  a  certain  sense  of  its  obsolescence, 
and  perhaps  of  its  original  inaccuracy";16  but 
he  finds  proved  on  the  experimental  plane  that 
its  wages  is  death,  and  that  goodness  has  its  re 
ward  of  inward  peace.  That  is  the  reward  of 
Dr.  Anther  in  The  8 on  of  Royal  Langbrith  (1904), 
when  his  long  love  story  draws  to  its  disappoint 
ing  close,  with  the  happiness  that  should  have 
been  his  withheld — the  rest  to  the  soul.  The 
happiness  that  comes  for  no  particular  merit  to 
the  son  of  Langbrith  is  seen  to  be  a  much  less 
precious  thing. 

There  is  a  freshness  about  The  Son  of  Royal 
Langbrith  that  holds  it  long  in  the  reader's  mem 
ory.  In  general  the  novels  written  by  Howells 
in  his  later  years  display  a  greater  variety  in 
substance  and  treatment  than  those  of  his  earlier 

""Robert   Herrick"   in  the   North  American  Review  (1909), 
189:814. 


240          William  Dean  Howells 

and  middle  life,  and  this  one  takes  up  a  new  aspect 
of  the  provincial  aristocracy — its  subtle  changes 
of  tone  with  the  coming  of  a  new  generation  and 
new  conditions.  The  central  problem,  as  hinted 
by  the  title,  is  that  ever-compelling  one  of  fathers 
and  sons,  the  cleavage  between  generations.  In 
particular  it  deals  with  the  sins  of  the  fathers 
and  the  baronial  tendencies  of  the  young  to  an 
cestor-worship,  and  their  peculiar  emphasis  on 
money  they  have  not  earned.  This  book  is  also 
one  of  its  author's  triumphs  over  literary  self- 
consciousness — a  triumph  so  complete  that  one 
looks  back  at  it  not  with  admiration  for  the  rare 
nature  of  its  achievement,  as  one  looks  back  at 
The  Minister's  Charge,  but  with  a  sense  of  the 
simplest  and  purest  artistic  pleasure.  And 
finally,  in  this  story,  Howells  reconceives  in  a  way 
the  sociological  notions  of  The  Quality  of  Mercy, 
and  vigorously  tempers  his  mercy  with  justice. 

Howells,   as   I   have    said,   carries   his   fullest 
jthical  conviction  when  he  is  defining  and  illus 
trating  the  responsibilities  of  the  individual  for 
tis  own  happiness.     The  books  he  values  most 
fighly  are  those  like  Anna  Karenina,  I  Malavoglia, 
and  The  Mill  on  the  Floss,  which  show  under  the 
most  ordinary  circumstances  the  truth  of  the  con 
flict  between  desire  for  present  happiness  and 
the  instinct  to  be  good,  which  reveal  the  necessity 
of  moral  law  for  the  individual.     To  picture  forth 
the  degeneracy  latent  in  a  selfish  nature,  and  to 
fix  that  more  firmly  in  terms  of  our  common  con 
dition  than  did  George  Eliot  in  Romola,  was  his 
purpose  in  his  first  "  great "  novel  and  his  only 
" strong"  one,  A  Modern  Instance  (1882).    It  was 


His  Fiction:  Studies  in  Ethics    241 

surely  Ms  instinct  for  verifiability,  and  his  desire 
to  awaken  his  reader  to  consciousness  of  like 
possibilities  in  himself,  that  led  him  to  dispense 
with  the  stronger  motivation  which  places  Romola 
above  the  sort  of  questioning  that  A  Modern 
Instance  has  invited.  The  prevailing  criticism 
has  been  that  the  book  is  under-motived,  and  that 
the  catastrophe,  wiiile  brought  about  by  the  re 
action  of  character  upon  character,  lacks  inevi 
tability — that  one  so  shrewd  and  unscrupulous 
as  Bartley  Hubbard  should  at  least  have  suc 
ceeded  in  a  worldly  way — socially  and  materially. 
It  has  been  objected  that  Bartley 's  beer-drinking 
does  not  adequately  account  for  his  disintegration 
of  soul.  And  indeed  it  were  a  feeble  warning 
against  the  perils  of  the  cup.  The  trouble  with 
Bartley  lies  deeper  and  is  very  accurately  diag 
nosed  by  Squire  Gaylord  very  early  in  his  history 
— on  that  memorable  night  when,  after  the  en 
gagement  has  been  broken,  Bartley  dismissed,  and 
Marcia  sent  away  to  visit  in  the  town  where  she 
used  to  go  to  school,  she  steals  back  to  tell  her 
father  that  she  cannot  live  without  him. 

"Oh,  you  poor,  crazy  girl!"  groaned  her  fa 
ther.  "Don't  you  see  that  the  trouble  is  in  what 
the  fellow  is,  and  not  in  any  particular  thing  that 
he's  done?  He's  a  scamp,  through  and  through; 
and  he's  all  the  more  a  scamp  when  he  doesn't 
know  it.  He  hasn't  got  the  first  idea  of  anything 
but  selfishness."  17 

That  is  a  scene  fraught  with  greater  terror  than 
many  of  those  which  signalize  Bartley 's  actual 

M  A  Modem  Instance  (1882),  p.  110. 


242          William  Dean  Howells 

decline,  the  wholesome  terror  of  unrealized  possi 
bilities,  which  Howells  found  so  salutary  and  was 
so  anxious  to  inspire.  It  was  Mr.  Hamlin  Gar 
land,  if  I  remember  correctly,  who  called  Bartley 
Hubbard  the  modern  substitute  for  a  villain. 

If  in  making  Bartley  consummately  worldly,  he 
raised  the  question  as  to  why  such  a  man  should 
not  succeed  in  the  world,  he  answered  it  in  The 
Landlord  at  Lion's  Head,  his  master  novel,  by 
allowing  Jeff  Durgin  to  reap  the  full  reward  of 
his  worldliness,  and  making  his  spiritual  tragedy 
even  more  impressive  than  Bartley 's.  There  is, 
however,  a  subtler  reason  for  the  inferiority  of 
A  Modern  Instance  to  this  greatest  of  all  his 
novels,  and  that  lies  in  the  fact  that  Hartley's 
particular  variety  of  smartness  constitutes  a  man 
ifestation  that  always  arouses  Howells'  wrath 
more  than  his  pity.  Howells  seldom  indulges  in 
partiality,  but  he  has  taken  a  brief  against  the 
smart  young  man,  the  one  American  type  odious 
to  him.  Freshness  is  his  abomination,  and  in 
its  protean  guises  he  scourges  it  through  a  full 
third  of  his  novels.  The  miserable  little  Dicker- 
son  in  The  Coast  of  Bohemia  is  perhaps  the  worst 
example  of  his  kind.  Beaton,  in  A  Hazard  of 
New  Fortunes,  who  is  made  to  enact  a  fiasco- 
suicide  in  the  Russian  manner,  represents  the 
aesthetic  egoist,  but  is  not  much  different  at  heart 
from  the  salesmen  and  journalists.  Bittredge,  the 
pursuer  of  Ellen  Kenton  in  The  Kentons,  is  Hub- 
bard  apotheosized;  and  while  a  note  of  poignant 
pathos  is  struck  by  introducing  his  fatuous 
mother,  the  sympathy  is  all  for  the  mother,  none 
for  the  offspring.  Hubbard  is  accorded  a  more 


His  Fiction:  Studies  in  Ethics    243 

humane  treatment  than  any  of  these,  it  is  true; 
but  his  redeeming  traits  are  not  greatly  insisted 
upon,  and  he  arouses  no  tithe  of  the  sympathy  one 
feels  for  Jeff  Durgin. 

Two  sure  claims  A  Modern  Instance  has  to  im 
mortality:  Squire  Gaylord,  the  shrewd,  quiet  old 
lawyer  of  Equity,  Maine,  whither  Bartley  comes 
to  run  his  newspaper  and  much  against  his 
prophetic  instincts  to  win  his  daughter,  and 
Marcia  herself,  almost  universally  pronounced 
the  most  fascinating  and  full-blooded  of  the 
Howells  heroines.  The  Squire,  a  Yankee  of 
Yankees,  is  a  type  that  Howells  was  never  to 
repeat  in  any  such  perfection ;  and  that  is  to  say 
that  no  one  else  has  done  his  type  half  so  well, 
for  he  is  strictly  in  Howells '  metier.  His  tragedy 
is  not  secondary  in  interest  to  the  matrimonial 
wreck  of  Bartley  and  Marcia.  In  fact,  the  real 
tragedy,  the  one  that  cannot  be  touched  by  criti 
cism,  because  it  is  in  no  sense  a  manipulation  of 
life,  but  life  itself,  the  simple  and  living  fact  of 
heart-broken  fatherhood,  is  his.  The  courtroom 
scene  in  which  the  old  man,  so  near  the  grave, 
offers  up  his  last  strength  in  defence  of  his 
daughter,  is  after  all  the  ineffaceable  moment  of 
the  book. 

In  The  Rise  of  Silas  Lapham  (1884)  Howells 
furnished  the  study  of  degeneration  in  A  Modern 
Instance  with  its  complementary  theme  as 
strongly  handled,  and  showed  that  ghastly  picture 
of  marital  unhappiness  its  obverse  in  the  affection 
and  loyalty  of  the  Lapham  family.  The  theme  of 
moral  regeneration  is  not  a  common  one  in  his 
work.  For  all  his  devotion  to  the  Eussians  he 


244          William  Dean  Howells 

remained  cautious  if  not  skeptical  as  to  the  capac 
ity  of  the  human  individual  for  essential  change 
and  development,  reading  the  great  novels  like 
Crime  and  Punishment,  The  Resurrection,  and 
War  and  Peace,  his  creative  power  unmoved  by 
the  redemption  theme  written  so  large  in  them. 
The  extent  of  the  liberty  he  allowed  himself  in 
Silas  Lapham's  case  may  be  appreciated  by  re 
calling  that  of  Dryfoos,  where  everything  is  done 
to  persuade  us  that  the  capitalist  was  not  really 
changed  by  his  change  of  heart.  l '  Does  anything 
from  without  change  us  1 "  asks  Basil  March  in  his 
fashion  of  expounding  his  author's  philosophy. 
"We're  brought  up  to  think  so  by  the  novelists, 
who  really  have  the  charge  of  people's  thinking, 
nowadays.  But  I  doubt  it,  especially  if  the  thing 
outside  is  some  great  event,  something  cataclys- 
mal,  like  this  tremendous  sorrow  of  Dryfoos 's."18 
His  apology  would  no  doubt  be  that  nothing  cata- 
clysmal  happens  to  Silas  Lapham,  and  that  Silas 
does  not  change,  but  develops.  For  Howells  does 
make  a  distinction — an  exceedingly  nice  one — be 
tween  changing  and  developing.  Mr.  March  is 
made  to  bring  this  out  as  he  continues  his  discus 
sion  with  Mrs.  March,  who  very  properly  wants  to 
know  what  in  the  world  it  is  that  changes  us,  since 
things  without  cannot : 

"Well,  it  won't  do  to  say  the  Holy  Spirit  in 
dwelling.  That  would  sound  like  cant  at  this  day. 
But  the  old  fellows  that  used  to  say  that  had  some 
glimpses  of  the  truth.  They  knew  that  it  is  the 
still,  small  voice  that  the  soul  heeds,  not  the  deaf 
ening  blasts  of  doom.  I  suppose  I  should  have  to 

»A  Hazard  of  New  Fortunes  (1891),  vol.  II,  p.  318. 


His  Fiction:  Studies  in  Ethics     245 

say  that  we  didn't  change  at  all.  We  develop. 
There's  the  making  of  several  characters  in  each 
of  us;  we  are  each  several  characters,  and  some 
times  this  character  has  the  lead  in  us,  and  some 
times  that.  From  what  Fulkerson  has  told  me  of 
Dryfoos  I  should  say  he  had  always  had  the  po 
tentiality  of  better  things  in  him  than  he  has  ever- 
been  yet ;  and  perhaps  the  time  has  come  for  the 
good  to  have  its  chance.  The  growth  in  one  direc 
tion  has  stopped ;  it 's  begun  in  another ;  that 's  all. 
The  man  hasn't  been  changed  by  his  son's  death; 
it  stunned,  it  benumbed  him;  but  it  couldn't 
change  him.  It  was  an  event,  like  any  other,  and 
it  had  to  happen  as  much  as  his  being  born.  It 
was  forecast  from  the  beginning  of  time,  and  was 
entirely  an  effect  of  his  coming  into  the  world. ' ' 19 

At  this  point,  Mrs.  March  interrupts  her  husband 
with  cries,  draws  him  back  from  the  brink  of  fa 
talism,  and  involves  him  in  confusions  into  which 
we  perhaps  ought  not  to  go  too  deeply  in  view  of 
the  general  validity  of  his  observation  and  the 
need  for  its  teaching  still  shown  by  our  novel  and 
by  our  theatre.  The  notion  that  makes  tragedy, 
as  Howells  once  expressed  it  in  propria  persona, 
a  sort  of  ' '  spiritual  chemistry,  combining  the  ele 
ments  of  character  anew,"  is  still  a  too  common 
one.  Call  it  change  or  development,  as  you  will, 
Dryfoos  does  not  get  far  in  the  process  and  Silas 
Lapham  does.  As  Mr.  March  says,  Dryfoos 's 
offer  to  sell  Every  Other  Week  on  easy  terms 
when  he  has  no  further  use  for  it  is  no  miracle  of 
magnanimity;  Silas  Lapham 's  sacrifice  of  all  his 
worldly  interests  in  response  to  an  awakened 

19  A  Hazard  of  New  Fortunes  (1891),  vol.  II,  p.  318. 


246          William  Dean  Howells 

sense  of  honesty,  and  his  return  to  the  little  Ver 
mont  town  of  his  early  struggles,  is  a  deeper 
thing.  Silas  has  changed  his  view  of  life  in  the 
process  of  suffering — not  as  Pierre  Bezukhoi  of 
War  and  Peace  exchanged  his,  but  certainly  after 
a  fashion  observable  in  no  other  of  Howells' 
heroes. 

This  condition  has  contributed  to  the  popularity 
of  the  story — and  there  can  be  little  doubt  that 
Silas  Lapham  is  the  best  beloved  of  Howells' 
works.  It  probably  owes  much  also  to  the  fact 
that  it  immortalizes  a  type  vastly  more  flattering 
to  American  readers  than  his  other  great  charac 
ters — not  only  more  flattering,  but  everyone  is 
pleased  to  believe,  actually  more  characteristic. 
Foreigners,  indeed,  agree  that  the  financier  and 
industrial  captain,  quickly  risen  from  obscure 
origins  to  colossal  prosperity  and  power  is  a  type 
distinctive  of  our  civilization.  Neither  they  nor 
we,  however,  always  recognize  as  one  of  his  char 
acteristic  traits  an  Anglo-Saxon  love  of  fair  play. 
He  habitually  regards  his  business  as  a  game  to 
be  played  honestly,  and  is  not  apt  to  be  cruel  and 
unjust  without  self-deception.  He  is  often  un 
fortunate  in  having  the  rules  in  his  own  making, 
b  at  in  his  darkest  scheming  he  does  love  the  game 
beyond  the  prize.  The  interesting  moment  in  his 
career  is  when,  as  his  ambitions  grow  and  widen, 
he  encounters  something  which  he  wants — social 
position,  usually,  but  maybe  only  a  new  way  of 
looking  at  and  enjoying  life — but  which  seems  to 
be  not  a  part  of  his  game.  He  cannot  see  why. 
Such  is  the  experience  of  Dryfoos  in  A  Hazard 
of  New  Fortunes,  and  of  Ralston  in  Letters 


His  Fiction:  Studies  in  Ethics    247 

Home,  but  Silas  Lapham  epitomizes  the  whole  of 
this  truly  national  drama.  His  magnitude  em 
braces  as  well  those  lesser  types  of  American 
business  men,  like  the  enterprising  Fulkerson  of 
A  Hazard  of  New  Fortunes  but  with  the  merely 
" smart77  men  of  smaller  ability  and  meaner  ego 
tism,  the  Bartley  Hubbards  and  better,  he  has 
little  in  common.  This  is  admirably  left  in  the 
reader's  mind  by  the  interview  with  which  the 
book  opens.  While  primarily  intended  to  place 
Silas  Lapham  on  exhibition  in  all  his  pride,  this 
chapter  exhibits  the  interviewer  as  fully;  egoism 
meets  egoism,  but  the  merely  flippant  air  of  su 
periority  is  struck  off  against  substantial  achieve 
ment.  One  does  not  escape  the  impression,  I 
think,  that  Howells  has  tried  to  give  a  national  as 
well  as  a  dramatic  significance  to  the  vital  cir 
cumstance  that  Lapham 's  innate  honesty  is  made 
to  contribute  to  his  downfall.  He  has  at  any  rate 
succeeded  in  giving  it  a  strong  racial  color,  differ 
encing  Lapham 's  honesty  from  the  honesty  of 
Cesar  Birotteau. 

In  comparing  Silas  Lapham  with  his  French 
prototype,  as  I  did  in  an  earlier  chapter,  I  neg 
lected  to  note  that  even  this  superb  creation  is  not 
without  a  touch  of  his  author's  literary  self -con 
sciousness.  Howells  plumes  himself  unduly  in 
giving  an  air  of  finality  to  his  hero's  acceptance 
of  the  hard  conditions  which  it  has  been  his  life's 
work  to  surmount.  The  year  after  Silas  Lapham 
had  come  from  the  press,  he  blamed  Balzac  pub 
licly  for  his  leniency  to  Cesar,  complaining:  "It 
is  not  enough  to  have  rehabilitated  Birotteau  pe 
cuniarily  and  socially,  he  must  make  him  die  tri- 


248          William  Dean  Howells 

urnphantly,  spectacularly,  of  an  opportune  hemor 
rhage,  in  the  midst  of  the  festivities  which  cele 
brate  his  restoration  to  his  old  home."  20  This  is 
a  little  arbitrary,  since,  although  Balzac  does 
overdo  Cesar's  honesty  in  its  effect  on  his  credi 
tors,  there  is  reason  in  his  rehabilitation,  just  as 
there  is  in  Lapham's  failure  to  retrieve  his  for 
tune. 

Howells'  scorn  of  crises  has  left  its  finest  effect 
upon  Silas  Lapham  in  the  perfect  naturalness 
with  which  the  calamities  are  permitted  to  de 
scend  upon  its  hero's  head.  He  declines  to  pur 
sue  the  man  as  many  authors  do.  One  has  only  to 
recall,  say  The  Vicar  of  Wake  field,  which  he  has 
so  lavishly  praised  from  time  to  time,  to  feel  the 
difference.  There  the  author's  hand  is  ruthless 
upon  the  shoulder  of  poor  Doctor  Primrose,  push 
ing  him  from  disaster  into  still  more  hopeless  dis 
aster.  The  only  instance  in  which  we  catch  How- 
ells  in  the  act  of  assisting  tardy  fate  is  when  with 
specious  cunning  he  burns  the  new  house  on  the 
water  side  of  Beacon  Street.  Save  for  this  ex 
ample  of  promptitude,  the  disasters  accumulate 
with  the  delays  and  indirections  which  attend  such 
matters  in  actual  life. ; 

In  the  optimistic  air  with  which  Lapham 's  ca 
lamity  is  consummated — not  in  the  very  end, 
which  is  given  over  to  the  Eeverend  David  Sewell 
with  his  eternal  speculation  on  the  mysterious 
ways  of  Providence — may  be  read  the  moral  sig 
nificance  of  his  history — in  the  repose  in  which  his 
strong  nature  receives  the  worst  and  which  is  in- 

»"The  Editor's  Study, "  in  Harper's  Magazine  (1886),  73: 
156. 


His  Fiction:  Studies  in  Ethics     249 

sensibly  communicated  to  his  family.  In  his  way 
Lapham  has  tasted  consciousness  of  the  elemental 
fact  that  we  are  part  of  a  social  order;  and  his 
cheerfulness  is  the  cheerfulness  of  a  capacity  for 
acting  his  part  in  that  order  realized  and  ful 
filled,  just  as  truly  as  the  bitterness  which  is  Anna 
Karenina's  portion  is  the  bitterness  of  a  capable 
soul  whose  part  is  denied  and  unfulfilled.  The 
tragedy  of  Anna  is  that  she  finds  by  a  thorny  road, 
from  which  she  is  unable  to  extricate  herself, 
what  Maggie  Tulliver  divined — that  individualism 
doesn't  work,  except  for  souls  with  some  essential 
meanness  in  their  composition.  Those  who  ask 
little  of  life  commonly  receive  less,  but  they  have 
the  mean  compensation  of  seldom  discovering 
what  is  lost.  Anna  has  asked  much  of  life ;  she  is 
a  soul  above  Emma  Bovary,  and  infinitely  above 
their  swarm  of  lesser  sisters  who  come  to  the  same 
end.  Consequently,  when  she  discovers  that 
Vronsky  does  not  hold  happiness  for  her,  her  dis 
illusionment  is  a  much  vaster  thing.  It  includes 
much  more  than  her  own  fate,  so  much  more  that 
her  death  is  only  a  personal  culmination,  which 
Tolstoi  might  or  might  not  have  given.  Death  and 
loss  of  fortune  really  have  no  vital  importance  as 
conclusions  to  two  such  histories  of  the  spirit  as 
Anna  Karenina  and  The  Rise  of  Silas  Lapham. 
The  fact  that  Silas  Lapham  does  not  retrieve  his 
fortune  is  as  inconsequent  as  that  Cesar  Birotteau 
should  rupture  a  blood  vessel  and  die  magnifi 
cently.  When  we  come  to  The  Landlord  at  Lion's 
Head  (1897)  we  find  so  far  as  concerns  Jeff  Dur- 
gin,  whose  spiritual  history  is  there  recorded,  no 
ending  at  all. 


250          William  Dean  Howells 

At  the  close  of  his  book,  Silas  Lapham  emerges 
captain  of  his  soul,  though  mastered  hy  fate ;  Jeff 
Durgin,  unthwarted  hy  fate,  never  discovers  that 
he  has  a  soul.  Jeff  asks  only  the  attainable  of  life, 
and  realizes  but  vaguely  the  failure  of  his  success. 
His  tragedy  is  a  tragedy  of  sheer  incapacity  for 
good,  a  complement  in  its  way  to  Anna  Kare- 
nina's,  the  supreme  tragedy  of  capacity.  The 
failure  of  the  American  youth  is  distinctly  per 
ceptible  only  to  the  observer  of  finer  qualities  than 
he — among  his  associates,  Westover,  the  artist, 
who  comes  up  to  the  hills  one  late  summer's  day 
to  paint  the  mountain  known  from  its  striking 
configuration  as  Lion's  Head.  Protracting  his 
sojourn  at  the  Durgin  farm-house  in  order  to  com 
plete  his  canvas  in  the  deep  evening  light  which 
lends  the  huge  granite  mass  its  most  impressive 
aspect,  he  strikes  up  a  tentative  comradeship  with 
the  boy  whose  fortunes  he  is  to  follow  through 
later  life.  But  "Westover  is  the  "Howells  young 
man" — the  insipid  and  somewhat  feminized  crea 
tion  that  Howells  employed  to  typify  the  Boston 
culture,  the  nice  young  man.  Hard  as  he  tries,  he 
is  incapable  of  any  effective  sympathy  with  Jeff, 
who,  for  all  his  selfishness  and  materialism,  is  one 
of  the  most  "sympathetic"  characters  among  the 
men  of  Howells'  world.  He  has  not  merely 
strength  of  body  and  power  of  will,  but  geniality 
and — before  it  is  repressed  by  his  disillusionment 
at  Harvard — even  joviality.  His  coming  to 
worldly  wisdom,  his  belief  in  the  wickedness  of  the 
beau  monde,  his  appetite  for  scandal,  synchronous 
with  his  taste  for  wine  and  the  theatre — these  are 
beautifully  done,  but  arouse  only  disgust  in  West- 


His  Fiction:  Studies  in  Ethics     251 

over.  Westover  finally  succeeds  in  convincing  his 
young  friend  that  his  is  an  old-fashioned  mo 
rality,  and  the  young  friend  goes  on  with  his  own, 
which  holds  that  "you  pay,  or  you  don't  pay,  just 
as  it  happens. " 21  And  Jeff  is  singularly  quali 
fied  to  get  on  without  paying. 

It  was  a  triumph  of  an  unusual  kind  for  How- 
ells  to  make  a  character  of  Jeff's  stamp  so  appeal 
ing;  but  it  might  well  have  been  predicted  that 
the  greatest  of  his  novels  would  teach  the  lesson 
of  such  a  life.  Opposing  as  he  did  the  persistence 
in  our  fiction  of  a  morality  that  bestows  upon 
spirituality  rewards  anything  but  spiritual,  he 
was  bound  to  show  us  in  his  most  significant  in 
stance,  not  the  selfishness  punished  by  both  in 
ward  and  outward  devastation,  as  he  did  in  A 
Modern  Instance,  nor  yet  the  serene  triumph  of 
honesty  over  material  adversity,] as  he  did  in  The 
Rise  of  Silas  Lapham,  but  the  sad  insufficiency  of 
the  success  which  our  world  commonly  allots  to 
those  mean  enough  to  aim  at  individual  happiness 
and  strong  enough  to  achieve  it,  this  very  national 
phenomenon  of  the  successful  failure.  This  is  not 
merely  to  remove  himself  from  "the  category  of 
futile  villain-mongers,"  but  to  terrify  us  in  the 
truest  sense  with  what  we  are.  The  Landlord  at 
Lion's  Head  is  essentially  a  beautiful  and  a  dis 
turbing  illumination  of  things  not  done.  And  no 
novel  ever  so  searchingly  revealed  the  inconse 
quence  of  what  we  do.  Jeff  might  have  succumbed 
to  drink,  but  he  did  not ;  for  he  had  inherited  along 
with  his  maternal  grandfather's  weakness  for 
wine  a  powerful  will  and  a  herculean  constitution. 

*  The  Landlord  at  Lion's  Head  (1908),  p.  309. 


252          William  Dean  Howells 

He  might  have  formed  a  vicious  liaison  with  Bes 
sie  Lynde,  but  the  impressiveness  and  the  very 
validity  of  the  Lynde  episode  are  conditioned  by 
the  fact  that  he  did  not.  He  might  have  been  a 
murderer,  but  he  spared  when  he  had  him  by  the 
throat  the  man  who  had  insulted  and  injured  him. 
He  might  at  the  very  least  have  committed  arson, 
but  his  hotel  burned  by  accident  during  his  ab 
sence.  Jeff's  character  is  implacably  delineated 
in  view  of  his  intentions  and  potentialities,  for 
which  things  there  is  no  place  in  his  philosophy. 
And  this  is  the  rare  and  peculiar  capacity  in  which 
the  art  of  Howells,  with  its  scorn  of  crimes  and 
climaxes,  can  touch  deeply. 

The  last  phase  of  Howells'  work  as  a  novelist 
was  his  return  for  inspiration  to  the  Middle-West 
from  which  he  sprang.  New  Leaf  MiUs  (1913) 
takes  us  back  to  the  Ohio  valley  and  to  the  time 
when  Chicago  was  "quite  a  growing  place, "  and 
substitutes  for  the  psychological  style  which  had 
begun  disturbingly  to  afflict  its  author's  work  the 
glowingly  reminiscent  manner  of  My  Year  in  a 
Log-Cabin.  The  Leatherwood  God  (1916)  is  like 
wise  affectional  rather  than  political  in  motive, 
limning  the  features  of  that  primitive  ante-bellum 
civilization  with  tenderness,  but  likewise  presents 
in  effect  a  most  appealing  picture  of  America  in 
formation.  These  are  autochthonous  documents 
of  the  Mid-West,  records  that  will  stand  with 
Hamlin  Garland's  A  Son  of  the  Middle  Border 
and  Ed  Howe's  The  Story  of  a  Country  Town. 

The  humanistic  problem  presented  by  our  fron 
tier  communities,  as  Ed  Howe  made  compellingly 
clear  in  The  Story  of  a  Country  Town,  was  largely 


His  Fiction:  Studies  in  Ethics     253 

a  religious  one.  The  early  settlers  when  they 
ceased  to  be  pioneers  still  lived  remotely,  undis 
turbed  by  the  commercial  and  industrial  prob 
lems  that  agitated  the  populous  quarters  of  the 
Republic,  and  religion  remained  the  chief  of  their 
serious  interests.  "A  fierce  religiosity,"  notes 
Howells,  "choosing  between  salvation  and  per 
dition,  was  the  spiritual  life  which  an  open  atheist 
here  and  there  sweepingly  denied. '  ' 22  And 
against  this  life  he  projects  in  the  first  of  these 
chronicles  the  figure  of  Owen  Powell,  one  from  his 
own  family  portrait  gallery,  a  democratic  vision 
ary  of  serene  temperament  and  large  benevolence, 
while  in  the  second  he  offers  an  engagingly  human 
specimen  of  the  local  "infidel." 

In  Matthew  Braile,  the  genial  agnostic  and  Jus 
tice  of  the  Peace  at  Leatherwood,  with  his  sense 
of  justice  and  fair-play,  with  the  infinite  humanity 
that  clothes  his  poor  philosophy,  and  with  the 
unconscious  reverence  in  his  nature,  delicately 
touched,  there  is  immortalized  for  early  Ohio  a 
type  as  verifiable  as  Squire  Gaylord  of  New  Eng 
land.  He  sits  on  his  splint-bottom  chair,  haloed 
by  fumes  from  his  corncob  pipe,  a  figure  of  hawk 
like  repose,  and  discourses,  compelling  the  respect 
and  even  the  affection  of  the  rustics  about  him,  for 
all  his  maliciously  reticent  way  of  taking  "the 
shine  off  of  religious  experience." 

The  story  has  its  universal  import  as  well,  the 
career  of  Joseph  Dylks,  the  horse-like  creature 
with  a  black  mane  of  hair  and  in  broadcloth,  who 
appears  among  the  native  exhorters  with  all  the 
thrill  of  an  apparition,  snorting  salvation,  being 

*New  Leaf  Mitts  (1913),  p.  22. 


254          William  Dean  Howells 

symbolic  of  evangelistic  imposture  in  all  times  the 
world  over.  Yet  this  aspect  of  the  work  did  not 
please  those  who  looked  to  The  Leatherwood  God 
for  a  sensational  exposure  of  professional  sin- 
hounding.  Those  who  looked  for  that  did  not 
know  their  Howells.  The  big  moments  of  this 
book  are  not  those  which  compass  the  downfall  of 
Dylks,  when  he  is  stripped  and  despitefully  used, 
in  "squalid  travesty  of  the  supreme  tragedy  of 
the  race,"  or  bring  him,  after  that  terrible  night 
in  the  Temple,  to  trial  and  acquittal  before  Squire 
Braile.  The  excitement  to  the  Howells  initiate  is 
in  the  little  moments — the  cry  in  the  night  of  the 
poor  woman  who  has  brought  the  bolt  of  cloth 
from  which  her  family  is  to  be  clothed  in  the  win 
ter  that  it  may  be  wrought  into  a  seamless  gar 
ment  and  sees  it  maliciously  rent  by  the  "hounds." 
These  are  the  moments  that  Howells  alone  ren 
ders  ineffaceable,  that  invite  his  reader  to  actual 
spectatorship  in  his  events,  that  contain  the  fine 
secret  of  his  humanity. 

It  is  gratifying  to  close  this  review  of  Howells ' 
work  with  so  happy  an  example  of  the  way  in 
which  his  nationalism  and  his  humanitarianism 
worked  together  and  of  the  way  in  which  he  was 
wont  to  resolve  his  human  problems  into  their 
simplest  and  truest  aspects,  and  to  make  these 
aspects  the  most  impressive.  His  literary  achieve 
ment  is  rooted  in  the  condition  that  he  was  a  great 
novelist  who  was  also  a  great  democrat.  His  va 
rious  accomplishments  array  themselves  about  the 
central  and  arresting  fact  of  his  absorption  in 
every-day  men  and  women.  He  was  not  a  great 
sociological  theorist  nor  was  he  one  of  the  multi- 


His  Fiction:  Studies  in  Ethics 

tude;  he  was  something  better.  He  was  a  great 
artist  who  made  the  basis  of  his  art  the  basis  of 
all  sociology.  There  is  a  letter  from  Mark  Twain 
in  the  third  volume  of  Mr.  Paine 's  wonderful  biog 
raphy  which  puts  this  much  better  than  I  can. 
"You  are  old  enough  to  be  a  weary  man  with 
paling  interests,"  it  reads,  "but  you  do  not  show 
it;  you  do  your  work  in  the  same  old,  delicate  & 
delicious  &  forceful  &  searching  &  perfect  way. 
I  don't  know  how  you  can — but  I  suspect.  I  sus 
pect  that  to  you  there  is  still  dignity  in  human 
life,  &  that  man  is  not  a  joke — a  poor  joke — the 
poorest  that  was  ever  contrived.  Since  I  wrote 
my  Bible  (last  year),  which  Mrs.  Clemens  loathes 
&  shudders  over  &  will  not  listen  to  the  last  half 
nor  allow  me  to  print  any  part  of  it,  man  is  not  to 
me  the  respect-worthy  person  he  was  before,  &  so 
I  have  lost  my  pride  in  him  &  can't  write  gaily  nor 
praisefully  about  him  any  more.  .  .  ."  These,  I 
think,  are  the  most  searching  words  that  have  ever 
?  been  uttered  on  the  art  of  William  Dean  Howells. 
One  aspect  of  Howells'  democracy  that  should 
be  mentioned  in  conclusion  will  continue  to  occa- 
Jsion  difficulty  with  his  admirers — the  democratiza 
tion  of  the  arts.  For  many  it  were  easier  to  vision 
the  brotherhood  of  man  than,  let  us  say,  popular 
.editions  of  the  Howells  novels.  But  Howells  never 
•relinquished  his  faith  in  the  effectiveness  of  the 
:novel  as  a  socializing  instrument.  He  thought  of 
literature  as  already  out  of  the  palace  and  the 
cloister  and  perhaps  as  far  as  the  forum,  and 
cherished  what  will  seem  to  many  of  his  friends 
the  optimistic  delusion  that  it  must  one  day  reach 
the  market-place.  He  believed  in  Michael  Ange- 


2^6          William  Dean  Howells 

lo's  "light  of  the  piazza"  as  an  artistic  criterion, 
even  when  Tolstoi  invoked  it  to  condemn  "The 
Last  Judgment, ' '  and  spoke  on  more  than  one  oc 
casion  of  the  "communistic  era  in  taste. "  Mark 
Twain,  indeed,  in  a  friendly  letter  gave  America 
one  hundred  years  to  make  the  Howells  books  as 
common  as  Bibles;  but  it  were  safer  perhaps  to 
rely  on  a  more  modest  prophecy  now  made  public 
in  the  letters  of  Henry  James,  who  looked  forward 
to  what  he  called  a  "beautiful"  time  when  the 
critical  intelligence,  an  entity  about  which  he  was 
somewhat  doubtful,  should  begin  to  render 
Howells  its  tribute. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Three  bibliographies  have  been  of  assistance  in  compiling 
this  one:  P.  K.  Foley's  American  Authors  1795-1895:  A  Bib 
liography  of  First  and  Notable  Editions  (1897),  Boston; 
Albert  Lee's  "Bibliography  of  First  Editions  (William  Dean 
Howells),"  in  the  Book  Buyer  (1897),  14:143,  269,  person 
ally  revised  by  Mr.  Howells;  and  the  "List  of  Publications" 
prepared  by  Mr.  Andrew  Keogh  for  Professor  W.  L.  Phelps' 
Essays  on  Modern  Novelists  (1910),  N.  Y.,  Macmillan.  The 
books  brought  out  by  Osgood  are  now  published  by  Houghton 
Mifflin  Company. 

I.    BOOKS   OF  AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL  INTEREST 

A  Boy's  Town.    N.  Y.    Harper.    1890. 

My  Year  in  a  Log  Cabin.    N.  Y.     Harper.    1893. 

Eecollections  of  Life  in  Ohio.  1813-1840.  By  William  Cooper 
Howells.  With  an  Introduction  by  his  son,  William  Dean 
Howells.  Cincinnati.  The  Robert  Clark  Company.  1895. 

Impressions  and  Experiences.    N.  Y.    Harper.    1896. 

Tears  of  My  Youth.    N.  Y.    Harper.    1916. 

See  also  My  Literary  Passions  and  Literary  Friends  and 
Acquaintance,  under  Books  of  Criticism;  New  Leaf  Mitts, 
under  Novels;  A  Day's  Pleasure  and  Other  Sketches  ("A 
Year  in  a  Venetian  Palace"),  under  Sketches  and  Stories; 
and  A  Little  Girl  Among  the  Old  Masters ,  under  Miscellaneous 
Works. 

II.    BOOKS  OF  CRITICISM 

Modern  Italian  Poets:  Essays  and  Versions.    N.  Y.    Harper. 

1887. 

Criticism  and  Fiction.    N.  Y.    Harper.    1891. 
My  Literary  Passions.    N.  Y.    Harper.    1895. 

257 


258  Bibliography 

Literary  Friends  and  Acquaintance:  a  Personal  Retrospect  of 
American  Authorship.  N.  Y.  Harper.  1900. 

Heroines  of  Fiction.     2  vols.    N.  Y.     Harper.     1901. 

Literature  and  Life:  Studies.    N.  Y.     Harper.     1902. 

My  Mark  Twain:  Reminiscences  and  Criticisms.  N.  Y. 
Harper.  1910. 

Imaginary  Interviews.    N.  Y.     Harper.     1910. 


III.    BOOKS  CONTAINING  CRITICAL  INTRO 
DUCTIONS 

Choice  Autobiographies.  Edited,  with  introductory  essays. 
8  vols.  Boston.  Osgood.  1877. 

Living  Truths  from  the  Writings  of  Charles  Kingsley.  Bos 
ton.  Lothrop.  1882^ 

Sevastopol.  Tolstoi.  Translated  from  the  French  by  F.  D. 
Millet.  N.  Y.  Harper.  1887. 

The  House  by  the  Medlar-Tree.  Giovanni  Verga.  Trans 
lated  by  Mary  A.  Craig.  N.  Y.  Harper.  1890. 

Pastels  in  Prose.  From  the  French.  Translated  by  Stuart 
Merrill.  N.  Y.  Harper.  1890. 

Poems.  George  Pellew.  Edited,  with  introduction.  Boston. 
W.  B.  Clarke.  1892. 

Main-Travelled  Roads.  Hamlin  Garland.  Revised  Edition. 
Chicago.  Stone  and  Kimball.  1893.  (New  Edition.  N.  Y. 
Harper.  1899.) 

Dona  Perfecta.     Galdos.     N.  Y.     Harper.     1896. 

Lyrics  of  Lowly  Life.  Paul  Laurence  Dunbar.  N.  Y.  Dodd, 
Mead.  1896. 

English  Society.  George  Du  Maurier.  N.  Y.  Harper. 
1897. 

Harpers  Novelettes.  Edited  jointly  by  William  Dean  Howells 
and  Henry  Mills  Alden.  8  vols.  N.  Y.  Harper.  1906- 
1907. 

Mark  Twain's  Speeches*.     N.  Y.     Harper.    1910. 

Poems.     Madison  J.  Cawein.     N.  Y.    Macmillan.     1911. 

Artemus  Ward's  Best  Stories.  Edited  by  Clifton  Johnson. 
N.  Y.  Harper.  1912. 

The  Second  Odd  Number.  Thirteen  Tales  by  Guy  de  Mau 
passant.  N.  Y.  Harper.  1917. 


Bibliography  259 

The  Shadow  of  the  Cathedral.  Vicente  Blasco-Ibanez. 
Translated  by  Mrs.  W.  A.  Gillespie.  N.  Y.  Button.  1919. 

Pride  and  Prejudice.  Jane  Austen.  (The  Modern  Students' 
Library.)  N.  Y.  Scribner.  1919. 

The  Actor-Manager.    Leonard  Merrick.    N.  Y.    Button.    1919. 

Great  Modern  American  Stories.  Collected  with  an  introduc 
tion  by  William  Bean  Howells.  N.  Y.  Boni  and  Liveright. 
1920. 

Daisy  Miller  [and]  An  International  Episode.  Henry  James. 
(The  Modern  Library.)  N.  Y.  Boni  and  Liveright.  n.d. 


IV.    POETRY 

Poems  of  Two  Friends.  With  John  James  Piatt.  Columbus. 
Follett,  Foster  and  Company.  1860. 

The  Poets  and  Poetry  of  the  West.  Containing  six  poems  and 
four  biographical  notices  by  William  Bean  Howells.  Co 
lumbus.  Fbllett,  Foster  and  Company.  1860. 

No  Love  Lost:  A  Romance  of  Travel.     N.  Y.     Putnam.     1869. 

Poems.  Boston.  Osgood.  1873.  (There  are  two  later  edi 
tions  of  the  collected  poems  with  slight  alteration  of  con 
tents,  that  of  1885  and  that  of  1901,  Boston,  Houghton.) 

Stops  of  Various  Quills.     N.  Y.     Harper.     1895. 

The  Mother  and  the  Father:  Dramatic  Passages.  N.  Y. 
Harper.  1909. 

See  also  The  Daughter  of  the  Storage,  under  Sketches  and 
Stories. 

V.    BOOKS  OF  TRAVEL 

Venetian  Life.    N.  Y.     Hurd.     1866. 

Italian  Journeys.     N.  Y.     Hurd.     1867. 

Three  Villages.    Boston.     Osgood.    1884. 

Tuscan  Cities.    Boston.     Ticknor.     1886. 

A  Little  Swiss  Sojourn.    N.  Y.     Harper.     1892. 

The  Niagara  Book.    With  S.  L.  Clemens  and  others.     Buffalo. 

Underbill  and  Nichols.     1893. 
London  Films.    N.  Y.     Harper.     1905. 
Certain   Delightful    English    Towns;    with   Glimpses    of    the 

Pleasant  Country  Between.    N.  Y.     Harper.    1906. 


260  Bibliography 

Roman  Holidays,  and  Others.    N.  Y.    Harper.    1908. 

Seven  English  Cities.    N.  Y.    Harper.    1909. 

Familiar  Spanish  Travels.    N.  Y.    Harper.    1913. 

The    Seen   and    Unseen    at   Strat ford-on- Avon;   A    Fantasy. 

N.  Y.    Harper.    1914. 
Hither  and  Thither  in  Germany.    N.  Y.     Harper.    1920. 


VI.    NOVELS 

Their    Wedding   Journey.     Boston.      Osgood.     1872.      (The 

same,  with  additional  chapter,  "Niagara  Revisited,"  Boston, 

1887.) 

A  Chance  Acquaintance.    Boston.     Osgood.    1873. 
A  Foregone  Conclusion.    Boston.     Osgood.    1875. 
The  Lady  of  the  Aroostook.    Boston.    Houghton.    1879. 
The    Undiscovered   Country.    Boston.     Houghton.     1880. 
Dr.  Breen's  Practice:  a  Novel.    Boston.     Osgood.     1881. 
A  Modern  Instance:  a  Novel.    Boston.     Osgood.    1882. 
A  Woman's  Reason:  a  Novel.    Boston.     Osgood.    1883. 
The  Rise  of  Silas  Lapham.    Boston.     Ticknor.    1884. 
Indian  Summer.    Boston.     Ticknor.     1885. 
The  Minister's   Charge;   or,  the  Apprenticeship  of  Lemuel 

Barker.    Boston.    Ticknor.    1887. 
April  Hopes.    N.  Y.    Harper.    1888. 
Annie  Kilburn:  a  Novel.    N.  Y.     Harper.     1888. 
A  Hazard  of  New  Fortunes :  a  Novel.     N.  Y.     Harper.     1889. 

(Also  issued  in  2  vols.,  1890.) 

The  Shadow  of  a  Dream:  a  Story.    N.  Y.     Harper,     1890. 
An  Imperative  Duty:  a  Novel.     N.  Y.     Harper.     1891. 
The  Quality  of  Mercy:  a  Novel     N.  Y.     Harper.     1892. 
The  Coast  of  Bohemia:  a  Novel    N.  Y.     Harper.     1893. 
The  World  of  Chance:  a  Novel     N.  Y.     Harper.     1893. 
A  Traveler  from  Altruria:  Romance.     N.  Y.     Harper.     1894. 
The  Day  of  Their  Wedding.    N.  Y.     Harper.     1896. 
The  Landlord  at  Lion's  Head.    N.  Y.     Harper.    1897. 
An    Open-Eyed   Conspiracy:   an   Idyl   of   Saratoga.    N.   Y. 

Harper.    1897. 

The  Story  of  a  Play:  a  Novel    N.  Y.     Harper.    1898. 
Ragged  Lady:  a  Novel    N.  Y.    Harper.    1899. 


Bibliography  261 

Their  Silver  Wedding  Jowrney.  2  vols.  N.  Y.  Harper. 
1899. 

The  Kentons:  a  Novel.    N.  Y.     Harper.    1902. 

Letters  Home.    N.  Y.    Harper.    1903. 

The  Son  of  Eoyal  Langbrith:  a  Novel.    N.  Y.    Harper.    1904. 

Miss  Bellard's  Inspiration.     N.  Y.     Harper.     1905. 

Through  the  Eye  of  the  Needle:  a  Romance  with  an  Intro 
duction.  N.  Y.  Harper.  1907. 

Fennel  and  Rue:  a  Novel.     N.  Y.     Harper.    1908. 

New  Leaf  Mills:  a  Chronicle.    N.  Y.     Harper.     1913. 

The  Leatherwood  God.     N.  Y.     Century.     1916. 

The  Vacation  of  the  Kelwyns.    N.  Y.     Harper.     1920. 

Mrs.  Farrell:  a  Novel.  With  an  Introduction  by  Mildred 
Howells.  N.  Y.  Harper.  1921. 


VII.    SKETCHES  AND  STORIES 

Suburban  Sketches.  N.  Y.  Hurd.  1871.  (The  same  re 
vised  and  enlarged,  Boston,  1872.) 

A  Day's  Pleasure,  and  Other  Sketches.  Boston.  Osgood. 
1876. 

A  Fearful  Responsibility,  and  Other  Stories.  Boston.  Os 
good.  1881.  (Contains  "At  the  Sign  of  the  Savage"  and 
"Tonelli's  Marriage.") 

Buying  a  Horse.  Boston.  1881.  (Reprinted  from  A  Day's 
Pleasure.} 

Niagara  Revisited,  12  Years  After  Their  Wedding  Journey,  by 
the  Hoosac  Tunnel  Route.  Chicago.  Dalziel.  1884. 
(Not  circulated.) 

Christmas  Every  Day,  and  Other  Stories  Told  for  Children. 
N.  Y.  Harper.  1893. 

A  Parting  and  a  Meeting:  Story.     N.  Y.     Harper.     1896. 

Doorstep  Acquaintance,  and  Other  Sketches.  Boston. 
Houghton.  1900. 

A  Pair  of  Patient  Lovers.    N.  Y.    Harper.    1901. 

The  Flight  of  Pony  Baker:  a  Boy's  Town  Story.  N.  Y.  Har 
per.  1902. 

Questionable  Shapes  (Three  stories  of  the  occult).  N.  Y. 
Harper.  1903. 


262  Bibliography 

Between  the  Dark  and  the  Daylight;  Romances.  N.  Y.  Har 
per.  1907. 

The  Daughter  of  the  Storage,  and  Other  Things  in  Prose  and 
Verse.  N.  Y.  Harper.  1916. 

See   also   Impressions   and   Experiences,   under   Books   of 
Autobiographical  Interest. 


VIII.    PLAYS 

The  Parlor  Car:  Farce.    Boston.    Osgood.    1876. 

Out  of  the  Question:  a  Comedy.    Boston.     Osgood.    1877. 

A  Counterfeit  Presentment:  Comedy.  Boston.  Osgood. 
1877. 

The  Sleeping  Car:  a  Farce.     Boston.     Osgood,     1883. 

The  Register:  Farce.     Boston.     Osgood.     1884. 

The  Elevator:  Farce.     Boston.     Osgood.     1885. 

The  Garroters:  Farce.     N.  Y.     Harper.    1886. 

A  Sea-Change;  or  Love's  Stowaway:  a  Lyricated  Farce.  Bos 
ton.  Tieknor.  1888. 

The  Mouse-Trap,  and  Other  Farces.     N.  Y.     Harper.     1889. 

The  Sleeping  Car  and  Other  Farces.    N.  Y.    Harper.     1890. 

The  Albany  Depot.    N.  Y.    Harper.    1892. 

A  Letter  of  Introduction:  Farce.    N.  Y.     Harper.     1892. 

The  Unexpected  Guests:  a  Farce.    N.  Y.     Harper.     1893. 

Evening  Dress:  Farce.    N.  Y.    Harper.     1893. 

A  Likely  Story :  Farce.    N.  Y.     Harper.    1894. 

Five  O'Clock  Tea:  Farce.    N.  Y.    Harper.     1894. 

A  Previous  Engagement :  Comedy.     N.  Y.     Harper.     1897. 

Room  Forty-five:  a  Farce.    Boston.     Houghton.     1900. 

Bride  Roses:  a  Scene.     Boston.    Houghton.     1900. 

The  Smoking  Car:  a  Farce.     Boston.     Houghton.     1900. 

An  Indian  Giver:  a   Comedy.     Boston.     Houghton.     1900. 

Parting  Friends:  a  Farce.     N.  Y.     Harper.     1911. 

Two  plays  ( "Self-Sacrifice :  a  Farce-Tragedy"  and  "The 
Night  Before  Christmas:  a  Morality")  are  included  in  the 
miscellany,  The  Daughter  of  'the  Storage,  listed  under  Sketches 
and  Stories.  The  Sleeping  Car  and  The  Parlor  Car  have 
been  reprinted  together  as  No.  240  of  the  Riverside  Literature 
Series,  Houghton  Mifflin  Company, 


Bibliography  263 


IX.     MISCELLANEOUS  WORKS 

Lives  and  Speeches  of  Abraham  Lincoln  and  Hannibal  Ham- 
lin.  Columbus.  Follett,  Foster  and  Company.  1860. 
(Contains  a  life  of  Lincoln  by  William  Dean  Howells.) 

Echoes  of  Harper's  Ferry.  Boston.  1860.  (Edited  by  James 
Redpath.  Contains  a  memorial  tribute  by  William  Dean 
Howells.) 

The  Atlantic  Almanac.  1870.  Boston.  1869.  (Contains 
"Bo-Peep:  a  Pastoral"  by  William  Dean  Howells.) 

Balloon  Post.  6  nos.  Boston.  1871.  (Consists  of  original 
contributions  by  Henry  James,  William  Dean  Howells, 
Bret  Harte,  and  others.  Published  at  the  French  Fair  in 
aid  of  the  destitute  people  of  France.) 

Jubilee  Days.  An  Illustrated  Record  of  the  Humorous  Fea 
tures  of  the  World's  Peace  Jubilee.  16  nos.  Boston.  Os- 
good.  1872.  ("Edited  anonymously  by  T.  B.  Aldrich  and 
W.  D.  Howells,  who,  with  E.  P.  Whipple,  were  the  prin 
cipal  contributors." — Foley. ) 

Sketch  of  the  Life  and  Character  of  Eutlierford  B.  Hai/es^ 
N.  Y.  Kurd.  1876.  (Contains  a  sketch  of  Wm.  A. 
Wheeler  by  another  author.) 

The  Cambridge  of  1776.  Cambridge.  1876.  (Contains  an 
introductory  sonnet  by  William  Dean  Howells.) 

The  City  and  the  Sea  [Longfellow]  with  other  Cambridge 
Contributions.  Cambridge.  John  Wilson  and  Son.  1881. 
(Contains  "My  First  Friend  in  Cambridge.") 

A  Little  Girl  [Mildred  Howells]  among  the  Old  Masters. 
With  Introduction  and  Comment  by  William  Dean  Howells. 
Boston.  Osgood.  1884. 

George  Fuller:  his  Life  and  Works.  A  Memorial  Volume. 
Boston.  Houghton.  1886.  (Contains  a  biographical 
sketch  by  William  Dean  Howells.) 

Library  of  Universal  Adventure  by  Sea  and  Land.  Edited  by 
William  Dean  Howells  and  Thomas  S.  Perry.  N.  Y. 
Harper.  1888. 

Character  and  Comment.  Selections  from  the  works  of  Wil 
liam  Dean  Howells  by  M.  Macoun.  Boston.  Houghton. 
1889. 


264  Bibliography 

South  Sea  Idyls.  C.  W.  Stoddard.  With  Introductory  Let 
ter  by  William  Dean  Howells.  Boston.  1892. 

Stories  of  Ohio.     N.  Y.     American  Book  Company.     1897. 

The  Howells  Story  Book.  Edited  by  Mary  E.  Burt  and  Mil 
dred  Howells;  illustrated  by  Mildred  Howells.  N.  Y. 
Scribner.  1900. 

Mulberries  in  Pay's  Garden.     Cincinnati.     Clarke.     1907. 

The  Whole  Family:  a  Novel  by  12  Authors.  N.  Y.  Harper. 
1908.  (William  Dean  Howells  joint  author.) 

Boy  Life.  Stories  and  readings  selected  by  Percival  Chubb. 
N.  Y.  Harper.  1909. 

In  After  Days :  Thoughts  on  the  Future  Life.  N.  Y.  Harper. 
1910.  (William  Dean  Howells  joint  author.) 

X.    A  SELECTED  LIST  OF  PERIODICAL 
CONTRIBUTIONS 

Book  notices  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  from  June,   1866,  to 

January,  1881  (17:775-47:126). 
"The    Question    of    Monuments,"    in    the   Atlantic    Monthly 

(1866),  17:646. 

"Henry  Wadsworth  Longfellow,"  in  the  North  American  Re 
view  (1867),  104:531. 
"The    Next    President,"    in    the    Atlantic    Monthly    (1868), 

21 :  628. 
"George   William    Curtis,"    in    the   North   American   Review 

(1868),  107:104. 
"The  New    Taste  in    Theatricals,"   in   the  Atlantic   Monthly 

(1869),  23:635. 
"Some  Arcadian  Shepherds,"  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  (1872), 

29 : 84. 
"Mr.  Parkman's  Histories,"  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  (1874), 

34:602. 
"Private  Theatricals,"  a  novel  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  (1875- 

1876),  36:  513,  674,  and  37: 1,  182,  329,  437,  559. 
"Pour  New  Books  of  Poetry,"  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  (1876), 

37:105. 

"A  Shaker  Village,"  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  (1876),  37:  699. 
"A   Sennight   of  the   Centennial,"   in   the  Atlantic   Monthly 

(1876),  38:92. 


Bibliography  265 

"Some  New  Books  of  Poetry,"  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  (1877), 

39 : 87. 

"Carlo  G-oldoni,"  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  (1877),  40:601. 
"Some  Recent  Volumes  of  Verse,"  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly 

(1878),  41:629. 

"Henry  James,  Jr.,"  in  the  Century  (1882),  3(n.s.)  :  25. 
"The  Laureate  of  Death"  (Leopardi),  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly 

(1885),  56:311. 
"The  Editor's  Study,"  essays  in  Harper's  from  January,  1886, 

to  March,  1892  (72 :  312-84 :  640). 
"A  Masterpiece  of  Diplomacy:  Farce,"  in  Harper's   (1891), 

88 : 371. 
"Are   We   a    Plutocracy?"   in    the   North   American   Review 

(1894),  158:185. 
"Equality   as   the  Basis   of   Good    Society,"   in   the   Century 

(1895),  29:63. 

"The  Nature  of  Liberty,"  in  the  Forum  (1895),  20:  401. 
"On  Coming  Back,"  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  (1896),  78:562. 
"Who  Are  Our  Brethren?"  in  the  Century  (1896),  29:  932. 
"The  Modem  American  Mood,"  in  Harper's   (1897),  95:199. 
"The  Laureate  of  the  Larger   England"    (Kipling),   in  Mc- 

Clure's  (1897),  8:453. 
"Confessions  of  a  Summer  Colonist,"  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly 

(1898),  82:742. 

"Edward  Bellamy,"  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  (1898),  82:253. 
"Pictures  for  Don  Quixote,"  in  the  Century  (1898),  34:177. 
"In  Honor  of  Tolstoy,"  in  the  Critic  (1898),  30(n.s.) :  288. 
"Charles  W.    Chesnutt's    Stories,"    in    the   Atlantic   Monthly 

(1900),  85:699. 
"Mr.  Stockton  and  All  His  Works,"  in  the  Book  Buyer  (1900), 

20 : 19. 

"The  New  Historical  Romances,"  in  the  North  American  Re 
view  (1900),  171:935. 
"The  Easy  Chair,"  essays  in  Harper's  from  December,  1900, 

to  April,  1920  (102:153-140:710). 
"At  Third  Hand:  a  Psychological  Inquiry,"  in  the  Century 

(1901),  39(n.s.):496. 
"An   Earlier   American"    (W.    J.    Stillman),    in    the   North 

American  Review  (1901),  172:934. 


266  Bibliography 

"An    Exemplary    Citizen,"   in    the   North   American   Beview 

(1901),  173:280. 

"A  Hundred  Years  of  American  Verse,"  in  the  North  Ameri 
can  Beview  (1901),  172:148. 
"The  New  Poetic   Drama,"   in   the  North  American  Beview 

(1901),  172:794. 
"A  Possible  Difference  in  English  and  American  Fiction,"  in 

the  North  American  Beview  (1901),  173: 134. 
"Professor  Barrett  Wendell's  Notions  of  American  Literature," 

in  the  North  American  Beview  (1901),  172:  623. 
"A  Psychological  Counter-current  in  Recent  Fiction,"  in  the 

North  American  Beview  (1901),  173:872. 
"A   Double-barrelled   Sonnet   to   Mark   Twain,"   in   Harper's 

Weekly  (1902),  46:1943. 

"fimile  Zola,"  in  the  North  American  Beview  (1902),  175:  587. 
"Frank    Norris,"    in    the    North    American    Beview    (1902), 

175 :  769. 
"Certain  of  the  Chicago  School  of  Fiction,"   in  the  North 

American  Beview  (1903),  176:734. 
"Henry  James's  Later  Work,"  in  the  North  American  Beview 

(1903),  176:125. 
"English  Feeling  Towards  Americans,"  in  the  North  American 

Beview   (1904),  179:815. 
"John   Hay  in  Literature,"   in  the  North  American  Beview 

(1905),  181:343. 

"Henrik  Ibsen,"  in  the  North  American  Beview  (1906),  183: 1. 
"The  Fiction  of  John  Oliver  Hobbes,"  in  the  North  American 

Beview  (1906),  183:1251. 
"The   Art   of   Longfellow,"   in   the  North   American   Beview 

(1907),  184:472. 
"A    Great  New   York   Journalist"    (E.    L.    Godkin),   in   the 

North  American  Beview  (1907),  185:44. 
"The  Fiction  of  Leonard  Merrick,"  in  the  North  American 

Beview   (1907),  185:378. 
"On  Reading  the  Plays  of  Mr.  Henry  Arthur  Jones,"  in  the 

North  American  Beview  (1907),  186:205. 
"Recollections   of  an   Atlantic   Editorship,"   in   the  Atlantic 

Monthly  (1907),  100:594. 
"The  Poetry  of  Mr.  Madison  Cawein,"  in  the  North  American 

Beview  (1908),  187:124. 


Bibliography  267 

"The  Justice  of  a  Friend/'  in  the  North  American  Review 

(1908),  187:880. 
"Some  Unpalatable  Suggestions,"  in  the  North  American  Re- 

view  (1908),  188:254. 
"Lyof  N.  Tolstoy/'  in  the  North  American  Review   (1908), 

188:842. 
"Robert  Herrick,"  in   the  North  American  Review    (1909), 

189:812. 

"The  Fiction  of  Eden  Phillpotts,"  in  the  North  American  Re 
view  (1909),  190:15. 
"Professor  Cross's  Life  of  Sterne,"  in  the  North  American 

Review  (1910),  191:273. 
"A  Political  Novelist  and  More"   (Brand  Whitlock),  in  the 

North  American  Review  (1910),  192:  93. 
"Mr.  Garland's  Books,"  in  the  North  American  Review  (1912), 

196 : 523. 
"Part   of  Which   I   Was,"   in   the   North   American  Review 

(1915),   201:135.     (Occasioned   by   the   centenary   of  the 

Review.) 
"Plays  of  Eugene  Brieux,"  in  the  North   American  Review 

(1915),  201:402. 

"Why?"  in  the  North  American  Review  (1915),  201:676. 
"In  Charleston,"  in  Harper's  (1915),  131:747. 
"Irish  Executions,"  in  the  New  York  Nation  (1916),  102:541. 
"The  Passengers  of  a  Retarded  Submersible,"  in  the  North 

American  Review  (1916),  204:741. 
"Eighty  Years  and  After,"  in  Harper's  (1919),  140:21. 


XI.    WRITINGS  ABOUT   HOWELLS 

Henry  James,  early  reviews  in  the  North  American  Review 

(1868),  106:336,  and  (1875),  120:207. 
W.  C.  Brownell,  "The  Novels  of  Mr.  Howells,"  in  the  New 

York  Nation  (1880),  31:49. 
Mrs.     Sutherland     Orr,    "International    Novelists    and    Mr. 

Howells,"   in    the    Contemporary  Review    (1880),   37:741. 

Reprinted  in  the  Living  Age,  145 :  599. 
Thomas    Sargent    Perry,    "William    Dean    Howells,"    in    the 

Century  (1882),  1:680. 


268  Bibliography 


"American  Literature  in   England,"  in  Blackwood's    (1883), 

133 : 136. 
G.  H.  Badger,  "William  Dean  Howells  as  an  Interpreter  of 

American    Life,"    in    the    International    Review     (1883), 

14:380. 
H.  E.  Scudder,  "The  East  and  the  West  in  Recent  Fiction," 

in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  (1883),  52:704. 
Henry  James,  "William  Dean  Howells,"  in  Harper's  Weekly 

(1886),  30:394. 

H.  K  Scudder,  "James,  Crawford,  and  Howells,"  in  the  Atlan 
tic  Monthly  (1886),  57:855. 
W.  H.  Bishop,  "Mr.  Howells  in  Beacon  Street,  Boston,"  in 

the  Critic  (1886),  6(n.s.) :  259. 
Harriet  E.  Monroe,  "Statesman  and  Novelist,"  in  Lippincott's 

(1887),  39:128. 
"Mr.  Maurice   Thompson   on   Mr.    Howells,"   in   the  Boston 

Literary  World  (1887),  18:281. 
Mrs.  S.  K.  Bolton,  Famous  American  Authors.  N.  Y.  Crowell. 

1887. 
W.  H.  Bideing,  Boyhood  of  Living  Authors.    N.  Y.     Crowell. 

1887. 
Jeannette  L.  and  J.   B.   Gilder,   Authors  at  Home.     N.   Y. 

Cassell.     1888. 
G.  E.  Woodberry,  "Modern  Italian  Poets,"  in  the  Atlantic 

Monthly  (1888),  61:130. 
Anna    Laurens    Dawes,    "The   Moral    Purpose   in    Howells's 

Novels,"  in  the  Andover  Review  (1889),  11:23. 
John  M.  Robertson,  Essays  Toward  a  Critical  Method.    Lon 
don.     Fisher  Unwin.     1889. 
"New    York    in    Recent   Fiction,"    in    the   Atlantic   Monthly 

(1890),  65:563. 
Hamlin  Garland,  "Mr.  Howells's  Latest  Novels,"  in  the  New 

England  Magazine  '  (1890),  2(n.s.)  :  243. 
J.  A.  Steuart,  Letters  to  Living  Authors.     London.     Sampson 

Low,  Marston.     1892. 
H.  H.  Boyesen,  "William  Deau  Howells  and  His  Work,"  in 

the  Cosmopolitan  (1892),  12:502. 
T.  C.  Crawford,  "Literary  Methods  of  William  Dean  Howells," 

in  the  Critic  (1892),  18(n.s.) :  36. 
H.  H.  Boyesen,  "A  Dialogue  Between  William  Dean  Howells 

and  Hjalmar  Hjorth  Boyesen,"  in  McClure's  (1893),  1:3. 


Bibliography  269 

Sylvester  Baxter,  "Howells's  Boston,"  in  the  New  England 

Magazine  (1893),  9(n.s.) :  129. 

Celia  Parker  Woolley,  "Mr.  Howells  Again,"  in  the  New  Eng 
land  Magazine  (1893),  9(n.s.)  :  408. 
"Mr.  Howells'  Americanisms,"  in  the  Critic  (1894),  22(n.s.) : 

193. 
H.  C.  Vedder,  American  Writers  of  To-day.     Boston.    Silver, 

Burdett.     1894. 

Harry  Thurston  Peck,  "Mr.  Howells  as  a  Poet,"  in  the  Book 
man  (1896),  2:525. 
Lida  R.   McCahe,   "One  Never   Can   Tell,"   in   the   Outlook 

(1898),  59:131. 
John   D.   Barry,   "The  Story  of   a   Play,"   in   the  Bookman 

(1898),  7:515. 
Harry  Thurston  Peck,  The  Personal  Equation.   N.  Y.   Harper. 

1898. 
Waldon  Fawcett,  "William  Dean  Howells  and   [Joseph]   his 

Brother,"  in  the  Critic  (1899),  32(n.s.) :  1026. 
Gerald  Stanley  Lee,  "Mr.  Howells  on  the  Platform,"  in  the 

Critic  (1899),  32(n.s.) :  1029. 

Cornelia  Atwood  Pratt,  "William  Dean  Howells:   Some  As 
pects    of    His    Realistic    Novels,"    in    the    Critic    (1899), 

32  (n^.):  1021. 
W.  P.  Trent,  The  Authority  of  Criticism.     N.  Y.     Scribner. 

1899. 
F.  W.  Halsey,  American  Authors  and  Their  Homes.    N.  Y. 

Pott.    1901. 
Brander  Matthews,  "Mr.  Howells  as  a  Critic,"  in  the  Forum 

(1902),  32:629. 
"Lowell    and    Howells,"    in    Harper's    Weekly    (1902),    46: 

101. 
John  M.  Robertson,  Criticisms,  vol.  1.     London.     Bradlaugh 

Bonner.     1902. 
Harriet  Waters  Preston,  "The  Latest  Novels  of  Howells  and 

James,"  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  (1903),  91:77. 
M.  H.  Vorse,  "Certain  Overlooked  Phases  of  American  Life," 

in  the  Critic  (1903),  43:  83. 
Richard  Arthur,  "The  Poetry  of  William  Dean  Howells,"  in 

the  Booklover's  Magazine  (1903),  2:569. 
Gertrude  Atherton,  "Why  is  American  Literature  Bourgeois?" 

in  the  North  American  Review  (1904),  178:771. 


270  Bibliography 


A.  Schade  van  Westrum,  "Mr.  Howells  on  Love  and  Liter 
ature,"  in  Lamp  (1904),  28:26. 

Frederic  Taber  Cooper,  "Miss  Bellard's  Inspiration,"  in  the 
Bookman  (1905),  21:610. 

L.  F.  Hartman,  "Howells  and  the  Logic  of  Love,"  in  Harper's 
Weekly  (1905),  49:871. 

Mark  Twain,  "William  Dean  Howells,"  in  Harper's  (1906), 
113:221. 

T.  W.  Higginson,  Short  Studies  of  American  Authors.  N.  Y. 
Longmans.  1906. 

John  Townsend  Trowbridge,  "An  Early  Contributor's  Recol 
lections,"  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  (1907),  100 : 59£. 

A.  Schade  van  Westrum,  "Mr.  Howells  and  American  Aristoc 
racies,"  in  the  Bookman  (1907),  25:  67. 

A.  Schade  van  Westrum,  "Altruria  Once  More,"  in  the  Book 
man  (1907),  25:434. 

Horace  Spencer  Fiske,  Provincial  Types  in  American  Fiction. 
Chautauqua,  N.  Y.  The  Chautauqua  Press.  1907. 

Frederic  Taber  Cooper,  "The  Many  Italics,"  in  the  Bookman 
(1908),  26:509. 

"Why  Have  We  Not  More  Great  Novelists?"  in  Current  Lit 
erature  (1908),  44:158.  Review  of  New  York  Times  inter 
view  with  Mrs.  Gertrude  Atherton. 

A.  Schade  van  Westrum,  "Mr.  Howells'  'Fennel  and  Rue/" 
in  the  Bookman  (1908),  27:  281. 

Edith  M.  Thomas,  "Mr.  Howells'  Way  of  Saying  Things,"  in 
Putnam's  (1908),  4:443. 

F.  M.  Colby,  "Curiosities  of  Literary  Controversy,"  in  the 
Bookman  (1908),  28:124. 

W.  C.  Wilkinson,  Some  New  Literary  Values.  N.  Y.  Funk. 
1908. 

Van  Wyck  Brooks,  "Mr.  Howells  at  Work  at  Seventy-two," 
in  The  World's  Work  (1909),  18:11547. 

"Ricus,"  "A  Suppressed  Novel  of  Mr.  Howells,"  in  the  Book 
man  (1910),  32:201. 

W.  L.  Phelps,  Essays  on  Modern  Novelists.  N.  Y.  Macmil- 
lan.  1910. 

J.  Henry  Harper,  The  House  of  Harper.  N.  Y.  Harper. 
1912. 

Mary  Wilkins-Freeman,  "A  Woman's  Tribute  to  Mr.  Howells," 
in  the  Literary  Digest  (1912),  44:  485. 


Bibliography  271 


V     Henry   James   and   Frank   B.    Sanborn,    "Literary   Recollec 
tions,"  in  the  North  American  Review  (1912),  195:  550. 

Note  prefatory  to  "The  Coming,"  in  the  Bookman  (1912), 
35 : 510. 

"America's  Foremost  Living  Man  of  Letters,"  a  symposium 

in  Current  Literature  (1912),  52:461. 

VW.  D.  H.  and  T.  S.  P.,  "Recent  Russian  Fiction:  a  Conver 
sation,"  in  the  North  American  Review  (1912),  196:85. 

Edith  Wyatt,  "A  National  Contribution,"  in  the  North  Ameri 
can  Review  (1912),  196:339. 

"Diplomaticus,"  "A  Portrayer  of  the  Commonplace,"  in  the 
Westminster  Review  (1912),  178:597. 

John  Macy,  The  Spirit  of  American  Literature.  N.  Y. 
Doubleday,  Page.  1913. 

"Howells  as  a  Victim  of  the  'Dead  Hand'  in  American  Fic 
tion,"  a  reply  to  John  Macy,  in  Current  Opinion  (1913), 
54:411. 

W.  B.  Trites,  "William  Dean  Howells,"  in  the  Forum  (1913), 
49 :  217. 

"William  Dean  Howells  as  a  Medium,"  in  Current  Opinion 
(1914),  57:51. 

John  Curtis  Underwood,  Literature  and  Insurgency:  Ten 
Studies  in  Racial  Evolution.  N.  Y.  M.  Kennerley.  1914. 

H.  W.  Mabie,  "William  Dean  Howells,"  in  the  Outlook  (1915), 
111 :  786.  Presentation  address  at  the  Boston  meeting  of 
the  Academy  of  Arts  and  Letters. 

Fred  Lewis  Pattee,  A  History  of  American  Literature  Since 
1870.  N.  Y.  The  Century  Company.  1915. 

Helen  Thomas  Follett  and  Wilson  Follett,  "Contemporary 
Novelists:  William  Dean  Howells,"  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly 
(1917),  119:362.  Reprinted  in  their  book,  Some  Modern 
Novelists:  Appreciations  and  Estimates.  N.  Y.  Holt. 
1918. 

Hamlin  Garland,  "Meetings  with  Howells,"  in  the  Bookman 
(1917),  45: 1.  See  also  A  Son  of  the  Middle  Border,  and 
for  general  comment  on  the  movement  toward  localism  his 
Crumbling  Idols. 

Alexander  Harvey,  William  Dean  Howells:  A  Study  of  the 
Achievement  of  a  Literary  Artist.  N.  Y.  Huebsch.  1917. 

Alexander  Harvey,  Introduction  to  A  Hazard  of  New  Fortunes 
(The  Modern  Library).  N.  Y.  Boni  and  Liveright.  n.d. 


272  Bibliography 


Van  Wyck  Brooks,  Letters  and  Leadership.    N.  Y.    Huebsch. 

1918. 

Henry  Mills  Alden,  "William  Dean  Howells,"  in  the  Book 
man  (1919),  49:549. 
H.   L.   Mencken,   "The  Dean,"   in   Prejudices:  First  Series. 

N.  Y.     Knopf.     1919. 
John    Erskine,   "William    Dean   Howells,"   in  the   Bookman 

(1920),  51:385. 
Arthur  Hobson  Quinn,  "The  Art  of  William  Dean  Howells," 

in  the  Century  (1920),  100:674. 
"The  Safe  and  Sane  Genius  of  William  Dean  Howells,"  in 

Current  Opinion  (1920),  69:93. 
Edward   S.   Martin,   "W.   D.   Howells,"  in  Harper's    (1920), 

141 : 265. 
Booth  Tarkington,  "Mr.  Howells,"  in  Harper's   (1920),  141: 

346. 
"William  Dean  Howells,  Printer,  Journalist,  Poet,  Novelist," 

in  the  Literary  Digest  (1920),  65:  53. 
E.  Gosse,  "The  Passing  of  William  Dean  Howells,"  in  the 

Living  Age  (1920),  306:98. 
"William    Dean    Howells,"    in    the   North   American   Review 

(1920),  212:1. 
_  W.  L.  Phelps,  "An  Appreciation,"  in  the  North  American 

Re-view  (1920),  212:17. 
Altha  Leah  Bass,  "The  Social  Consciousness  of  William  Dean 

Howells,"  in  the  New  Republic  (1921),  26: 192. 
May   Tomlinson,  "Fiction  and  Mr.   Howells,"  in  the  South 

Atlantic  Quarterly  (1921),  20:360. 
Carl  Van  Doren,  "Howells  and  Realism,"  in  The  American 

Novel    N.  Y.    Macmillan.    1921. 

Carl  Van  Doren,  "The  Later  Novel:  Howells,"  in  The  Cam 
bridge  History  of  American  Literature,  vol.  3.  N.  Y. 

Putnam.     1921. 

NOTE:  Many  letters  of  the  highest  interest  will  be  found  in 
Albert  Bigelow  Paine's  Mark  Twain:  A  Biography  (3  vols., 
N.  Y.,  Harper,  1912),  and  in  The  Letters  of  Henry  James, 
selected  and  edited  by  Percy  Lubbock  (2  vols.,  N.  Y.,  Scrib- 
ner,  1920). 


INDEX 


Albany  Depot,  The,  168,  171 
Alden,  Henry  Mills,  168 
Aldrich,  Thomas  Bailey,  29 
American,  The,  99-100 
Aminta,  18 
Andromeda,  121 
Angel  of  the  Lord,  The,  188 
Anna    Karenina,    34,    38,    101, 

240,  249,  250 
Annie  Kilburn,  206,  208,  222, 

224-226,  234 
April  Hopes,  206-208 
Arabian  Nights,  36 
Arbuton,    Miles,    114,    162-164, 

181 

Ardith,  Wallace,  211-212,  231 
Aristotle,  48,  92 
Arnold,  Matthew,  44-45,  56,  63- 

64 

Art  of  Fiction,  The,  105 
Atherton,   Gertrude,   49-50,   76, 

143 
Atlantic  Monthly,  The,  27,  28, 

29,  41,  66,  118,  176 
Austen,   Jane,   31,  38,   70,   106, 

207,    217;    Persuasion,    165; 

Pride  and  Prejudice,  162-165 

Bacon,  Francis,  235 

Balzac,  32,  86,  93,  98,  99,  141, 
194;  Cesar  Birotteau,  99-100, 
247-249 

Barker,  Lemuel,  5,  223-224 

Beers,  H.  A.,  84 

Bellamy,  Edward,  234,  235 

Besant,  Walter,  105 

Between  the  Dark  and  the  Day 
light,  185,  188-189 

Bewildered  Guest,  The,  123,  125 

Bjornson,  B.,  27 

Blithedale  Eomanoe,  The,  181 


Blood,  Lydia,  177-178,  211 
Boileau,  48 
Bourget,  Paul,  61 
Boyesen,  H.   H.,   65,   76 
Boynton,  Doctor,  182-186 
Boynton,  Egeria,  182-183 
Boy's  Town,  A,  7,  9,  11,  14 
Braile,  Matthew,  253-254 
Breen,  Grace,  189-192,  224 
Bride  Eoses,  168 
Bronte,  Charlotte,  190 
Brook,  Parthenope,  219 
Brown,    Althea,    184 
Brownell,  W.  C.,   4,  45,   51-52, 

110 
Browning,     Elizabeth     Barrett, 

106 

Browning,  Robert,  23,  47,  122 
Brunetiere,  R,  51 
Burns,  Robert,  72 
Butler,  Samuel,  109 
Byron,  134-135 

Cesar    Birotteau,    99-100,    247- 

249 

Campanella,  235 
Campbell,  Willis,  171,  172 
Captain   Dunlevy's   Last    Trip, 

126 
Case    of    Metaphantasmia,    A, 

189 
Century  Magazine,  The,  29,  41, 

89 
Certain       Delightful      English 

Towns,  133,  142 
Certain  Kicli  Man,  A,  94-95 
Cervantes,  2,  12,  16,  19,  20,  31, 

36,  59;  Don  Quixote,  18,  36 
Chance   Acquaintance,   A,    161- 

165,  167,   172,  177,   181,   182 
Chaucer,  2,  20,  69,  72,  145,  150 


273 


274 


Index 


Chesnutt,  Charles  W.,  58 
Chesterton,  G.  K.,  106 
Cincinnati  Gazette,  24,  134 
Claxon,  Clementina,  211 
Clement,  121 
Coast  of  Bohemia,  The,  208-210, 

242 

Colby,  F.  M.,  78-79 
Coleridge,  8.  T.,  48,  197 
Collections  for  the  History  of 

Ohio,  12 

Colville,  Theodore,  204-205 
Confessions  of  a   Young   Man, 

97,  214 

Conrad,  Joseph,  68,  69,  94,  138 
Cooper,  J.   F.,  138 
Corey,  Bromfield,  224 
Cosmopolitan,  The,  29,  168 
Counterfeit     Presentment,     A, 

167 

Craig,  Mary  A.,  42,  103 
Crawford,  Marion,  85,  103,  197 
Crime  and  Punishment,  244 
Criticism,  45 
Criticism   and   Fiction,  42,    45- 

55,   60-61,   62-63,   71,   74,   82, 

111,  229 
Cruikshank,  George,  164 

Dante,  28,  56,  147,  173 
Daudet,  Alphonse,  134,  136 
Daughter  of  the  Storage,  The, 

119,  126,  168 
Day    of    Their    Wedding,    The, 

184 
Defoe,    Daniel,    74;     Robinson 

Crusoe,  36 

De  Forest,  J.  W.,  48,  58 
Denton,  Ansel,  232 
Deserted  Village,  The,  16 
Dickens,  Charles,  21-22,  41,  58, 

74,  216 
Dr.  Breen's  Practice,   189-192, 

210 

Dona  Perfecta,  43 
Don  Quixote,  18,  36 
Dostoievsky,    Fedor,    38,    228; 

Crime  and  Punishment,  244 
Drama  Nuevo,  Un,  167 
Dryfoos,  Christine,  80 


Dryfoos,  Conrad,  226,  228,  232 
Dunbar,     Paul    Laurence,     58; 

Lyrics  of  Lowly  Life,  43 
Durgin,  Jackson,  187 
Durgin,    Jeff,    102,    242,    243, 

249-252 
Dylks,  Joseph,  253-254 

Easy  Chair,  The,  30,  41,  63 
Edgeworth,  Maria,  70 
Editor's  Study,  The,  29,  41,  42, 

63-64,  88,  248 
Edwards,  Jonathan,  95 
Eidolons  of  Brooks  Alford,  The, 

188 

Elevator,  The,  168,  172 
Eliot,    George,    31,   38,    74,    99, 

102;    The  Mill  on  the  Floss, 

96-97,  240;  Eomola,  101,  105, 

240-241 

Ellis,  Havelock,  98 
Ellison,     Kitty,     114,     161-162, 

178,  182 

Elmore,  Owen,  199-201,  204 
Emerson,  Kalph  Waldo,  23,  26 
Essays  in  Criticism,  44-45 
Essays      Towards     a     Critical 

Method,  48,  203 
Evangeline,  121 
Evening  Dress,  168 

Face  at  the  Window,  The,  126- 

127       , 

Faguet,  Emile,  49 
Falstaff,  19 

Familiar  Spanish  Travels,  133 
Fearful  Eesponsibility,  A,  199- 

201,   203,   204 
Fennel  and  Eue,  165,  190,  212, 

213 
Fenton,   Kobert,   81,    194,    196- 

197,  204 

Feuillet,  Octave,  44,  196 
Fielding,  Henry,  41 
Fields,  James  T.,  28 
Five  O'Cloclc  Tea,  168,  171 
Flandrau,  Charles  M.,  208 
Flaubert,     Gustave,     74,     148, 

149;    Madame   Bovary,  249; 

Salammbd,  105 


Index 


275 


Follett,  Wilson,  84 

Foregone  Conclusion,  A,  153, 
172-176,  177,  182,  206 

Forlorn,  120 

Forster,  John,  Life  of  Gold 
smith,  17 

Frances,  Sister,  184 

From  Generation  to  Generation, 
124 


Galdos,  Benito  Perez,  43 

Galsworthy,  John,  64,  89,  227, 
229 

Garland,  Hamlin,  3,  77,  242; 
Hesper,  77;  Main  -  Travelled 
Eoads,  43 ;  Money  Magic,  77 ; 
Eose  of  Dutcher's  Coolly, 
77;  A  Son  of  the  Middle 
Border,  3,  252 

Garroters,  The,  168,  171 

Gautier,  Theophile,  136;  Made 
moiselle  de  Maupin,  72 

Goethe,  Hermann  und  Dorothea, 
121-122 

Golden  Bowl,   The,  97 

Goldoni,  Carlo,  28,  57 

Goldsmith,  Oliver,  15,  16,  19, 
20,  36;  The  Deserted  Vil 
lage,  16 ;  The  Vicar  of  Walce- 
field,  248 

Gourmont,  K6my  de,  Prome 
nades  Litteraires,  44 

Grahame,  Imogene,  203-204, 
205 

Guarini,  Pastor  Fido,  18 


Hamilton,  Clayton,  84 
Hamlet,  90-91 
Hardy,  Thomas,  31 
Harkness,  Helen,  193-196,  204, 

208,  223 

Harlowe,  Clarissa,  70 
Harper,  the  firm  of,  29,  30,  42, 

132 

Harper,  J.  Henry,  169 
Harper's  Magazine,  29,  30,  41 
Harper's  Novelettes,  43 
Harvey,  Alexander,  76,  224 


Hawthorne,  26,  31,  99 

Hazard   of   New    Fortunes,   A, 

80,  96,  124,  157-158,  177,  208, 

222,   226-228,   232,   233,   236- 

238,  242,  244-245,  246,  247 
Hazlitt,  54 
Heine,    24-25,    36-37,    119-120, 

134 
Hermana  San  Sulpicio,  La,  61- 

63,  65,  71 
Hermann    und    Dorothea,    121- 

122 
Heroines  of  Fiction,  31,  32,  42, 

57,  70,  111,  165,  181,  211 
Herrick,  Robert,  76-77,  101 
Hesper,  77 

Hewlett,  Maurice,  137 
Higginson,  Thomas  Wentworth, 

29,  114 

Hilary,  the  family   of,   161 
Hilary,  Louise,  138,  202 
Hilary,  Matt,  233 
His  Apparition,  188 
Hither    and    Thither    in    Ger 
many,  133 
Holmes,  O.  W.,  26 
Homer,  56 

Homos,  Aristides,  235 
House  ~by  the  Medlar-Tree,  The, 

(I  Malavoglia),  42,  101,  103- 

105,  108,  240 
House  of  the  Seven  Gables,  The, 

181,  182 

Howe,  E.  W.,  252 
Howells,  Mary  Dean,  10 
Howells,  William  Cooper,  9,  10- 

11 
Hubbard,  Hartley,  234,  241-243, 

247 
Hubbard,  Marcia,  80,  178,  241, 

243 

Hughes,  Peace,  232 
Hugo,  Victor,  82,  229,  230 
Huneker,  James,  112 
Hunt,   Leigh,   54 
Huysmans,  Karl,  98 

If,  125 

Imaginary   Interviews,   42.    54, 
90-91 


276 


Index 


Imperative  Duty,  An,  192-193, 

201 

Impressions  and  Experiences,  7 
Indian  Summer,  160,  168,  200, 

203-206 

Ippolito,  Don,  173-175,  182 
Irving,  Washington,  16,  17,  19, 

36,  134 
Italian  Journeys,  132,  136,  141- 

142,  149 
Ivan  Ilyitch,  34 

James,  Henry,  29,  32,  41,  89, 
92-93,  98,  136,  138,  144-145, 
152-154,  163,  178,  190,  201, 
256;  The  American,  99-100, 
205;  The  Art  of  Fiction 
(Partial  Portraits),  105; 
Daisy  Miller,  178;  The  Gold 
en  Bowl,  97;  Transatlantic 
Sketches,  145 

Jonson,  Ben,  157-158 

Keats,  John,  46,  141 

Kenton,  Boyne,  87 

Kenton,  Ellen,  80,  210-211,  214, 

242 

Kenton,  Lottie,  210-211 
Kentons,    The,    66-68,    87,    210- 

211,  242 

Kingsley,    Charles,    121 
Kipling,  Rudyard,  68,  138 
Kreutzer  Sonata,  The,  34 

Labor  and  Capital,  25 

Lady    of    the    Aroostook,    The, 

172,   177-181,   189,   200,   203, 

205 

Lady  of  the  Lake,  The,  15 
Lamb,  Charles,  54 
Landlord  at  Lion's  Head,  The, 

98,   102,  187,   207,   226,   242, 

249-252 
Lapham,  Silas,  94-95,  102,  114, 

163,  244-249,  250 
Leat herwoobT God,  The,  252-254 
Lessing,  48 
Letter  of  Introduction,  A,  168, 

171 
Letters  Home,  211-212,  231,  247 


Life  of  Lincoln,  25,  120 
Likely  Story,  A,  168,  171 
Literary  Friends  and  Acquain 
tance,  7,  25-28,  42,  118,  130- 
132 
Literature  and  Life,  6,  42,  146- 

Little  Swiss  Sojourn,  A,  132 
Liza,  93 

London  Films,  132 
Longfellow,    23,    26,    27,    119, 

120-121,    122,    129;    Evange- 

line,  121 

Looking  Backward,  234 
Lorna  Doone,  125  - 
Loti,  Pierre,  49,  136 
Louis  Lebeau's  Conversion,  121 
Lbwell,   J.    R.,   20,   26,   27,   69, 

115,  118,  119,  129,  130 
Lynde,  Bessie,  252 
Lyrics  of  Lowly  Life,  43 

McCabe,  Lida  R.,  118 
Madame  Bovary,  249 
Mademoiselle  de  Maupin,  72 
Main-Travelled  Eoads,  43 
Marble  Faun,  The,  181,  182 
March,    Basil    and    Isabel,    82, 

156-160,   163,   171,   187,   227, 

228,  236-238,  244-245 
Marivaux,  169 
Materials  for  a  Story,  125 
Matthews,  Brander,  58,  84,  110 
Maupassant,  Guy  de,  136,  144, 

201 

Maxwell,  Brice,  138,  202,  233 
Maybough,  Charmian,  208-210 
Mayhew,  Lily,  199-200 
Memories  and  Portraits,  2,  85- 

86 

Memories  of  Authors,  78 
Memory     That     Worked     Over 
time,  A,  189 
Meredith.  George,  58,  69 
Merrill,  Stuart,  43 
Miller,  Daisy,  178 
Mill  on  the  Floss,   The,  96-97, 

240 
Minister's  Charge,  The,  5,  113, 

155,  206,  222-224,  240 


Index 


277 


Miss  Bellard'*  Inspiration,  212- 

214 
Modern  Instance,  A,  116,  198, 

199,  203,  240-243,  251 
Modern  Italian  Poets,  42,  83 
Modern  Novel,  The,  84 
Money  Magic,  77 
Mother    and    the   Father,    The, 

119,  125 

Motley,  John  Lothrop,  130 
Moore,  George,  32,  97,  112,  214 
More,  Sir  Thomas,  235 
More,  Paul  Elmer,  44 
Morris,  William,  235 
Morrison,  Arthur,  227,  229 
Mouse-trap,  The,  168,  169,  170, 

171 

Movers,  The,  121-122 
Mrs.  Fair  ell,  111 
Miinsterberg,  Hugo,  189 
Musset,  Alfred  de,  170 
My  Literary  Passions,  6,  7,  15- 

25,    28,    30-36,    42,    57,    72, 

146 

My  Marie  Twain,  42 
My  Year  in  a  Log  Cabin,  7.  11, 

13,  252 

Nest  of  Nobles,  93 

New  Leaf  Mills,  96,  252-253 

Newman,    Christopher,    99-100, 

205 

Niagara  Book,  The,  7 
Niagara,  First  and  Last,  7 
Niagara  Revisited,  158,  176 
No    Love    Lost,    118,    122-123, 

125 
North   American   Beview,    The, 

27,  41,  42,  132 

Ohio  State  Journal,  17,  25 
On     Contemporary     Literature, 

84 

Osgood,  James  E.,  29 
Out  of  the  Question,  162,  166- 

167 

Paine,  Albert  Bigelow,  255 
Pair    of    Patient    Lovers,    A, 
157 


Palacio-Valde"s,    Armando,    31, 

67,  68 ;  La  Hermana  San  Sul- 

picio,    61-63,    65,    71;    Jose, 

217 

Pardo-Bazan,  Emilia,  31 
Parkman,  Francis,  114 
Parlor  Car,  The,  167 
Parting  and  a  Meeting,  A,  168 
Parting  Friends,  168 
Pasmer,  Alice,  207 
Pastels  in  Prose,  43 
Pastor  Fido,  18 
Pater,  Walter,  144 
Pathfinder,  The,  141 
Pattee,  F.  L.,  133,  169,  176 
Patterne,   Sir  Willoughby,  163 
Peck,  Harry  Thurston,  177-178, 

180 

Perry,  Bliss,  84 
Persuasion,  180 
Pfaff's  beer-cellar,  78 
Phelps,  William  Lyon,  210-211 
Phillpotts,  Eden,  58 
Piatt,  J.  J.,  118 
Pilot's  Story,  The,  120-121 
Pitkin,  Walter  B.,  143-144,  149 
Plato,  235 
Pleasure-Pain,  120 
Poe,  E.  A.,  90 
Poems,  119-123,  125 
Poems  of  Two  Friends,  25,  118 
Pope,  7,  17-20,  22,  36,  48,  112, 

119,  127,  149 
Powell,  Owen,  253 
Preston,  Harriet  Waters,  66 
Previous  Engagement,  A,  168 
Pride  and  Prejudice,  162-165 
Private     Theatricals,     176-177, 

218 

Promenades  Litt&raires,  44 
Propos  Litteraires,  49 
Pursuit  of  the  Piano,  The,  78- 

79 
Pyle,  Howard,  123 

.-- 
Quality    of    Mercy,    The,    208, 

225,  233-234,  240 
Questionable  Shapes,  187 

Badeliffe,  Anne,  57,  138 


278 


Index 


Ragged  Lady,  210,  221,  222 
Ralston,  America,  212 
Recollections  of   Life   in   Ohio, 

7,  11 

Register,  The,  168 
Eesurrection,  244 
Richardson,    Samuel,    41,    169, 

211 ;  Clarissa  Harlowe,  170 
Rise  of  Silas  Lapham,  The,  95, 

98,  99-100,  102,  116,  199,  2W% 

214,  223,  224,   243-249,  251 
Road  in  Tuscany,  The,  137 
Robert  Elsmere,  234 
Robertson,  John  M.,  44,  48,  53, 

198,  203,  206 
Robinson  Crusoe,  36 
Roman  Holidays,  133 
Romola,  101,  105,  240-241 
Room  Forty-five,  168 
Rose  of  Dutcher's  Coolly,  77 
Ruskin,  John,  144 

Salammbo,  105 

Saunders,  Cornelia,  208 

Scarlet  Letter,  The,  181 

Schopenhauer,  Arthur,  124 

Scott,  Walter,  17,  57,  58,  79, 
82,  107,  138,  180,  215;  Ivan- 
hoe,  18,  36;  The  Lady  of  the 
Lake,  15 

Sea-Change,  A,  168,  172,  194 

Seen  and  Unseen  at  Stratford- 
on-Avon,  The,  133,  234 

Seven  English  Cities,  133 

Sewell,  David,  5,  113,  116,  222- 
223,  224,  238,  248 

Shadow  of  a  Dream,  The,  156, 
158,  187 

Shakespeare,  12,  19,  20,  56,  90- 
91,  147 

Shaw,  Bernard,  169 

Shelley,  Percy  Bysshe,  141 

Sherman,  Stuart  P.,  84 

Sleep  and  a  Forgetting,  A,  188 

Sleeping  Car,  The,  168 

Smoking  Car,  The,  168 

Son  of  Royal  Langbrith,  The, 
212,  214,  221,  237,  239-240 

Son  of  the  Middle  Border,  A, 
3.252 


Southern  Lights  and  Shadows, 

43 

Southey,  Robert,  126 
Spenser,  Edmund,  20,  69 
Spingarn,  J.  E.,  44 
Spinoza,  Baruch,  150 
Stevenson,  Robert  Louis,  2,  55, 

64,  84,  89,  90,  105,  145,  148, 

152,      197;      Memories     and 

Portraits,  2,  85-86 
Stops    of    Various    Quills,    119, 

122,  123-125 
Story  of  a  Country  Town,  The, 

252 
Story  of  a  Play,  The,  138,  161, 

201-203 

Stowe,  Harriet  Beecher,  26 
Suburban  Sketches,  154 
Swinburne,  A.  C.,  72 

Taine,  H.  A.,  44,  112 
Tasso,  18 

Taylor,  Bayard,  121,  129 
Tennyson,    23,    122,    124,    204; 

Maud,  24 
Thackeray,  W.  M.,  4,  7,  22-23, 

32,   36,   41,  58,   59,   74,   109- 

112,  160,  216 
Their  Silver  Wedding  Journey, 

133,  139,  141,  157-158,  160 
Their  Wedding  Journey,  29,  65, 

81-82,  129,  150,  152-156,  158, 

159,  161,  177,  197 

Though    One    Rose    from    the 

Dead,  188,  213 
Through  the  Eye  of  the  Needle, 

160,  234 

Tolstoi,  6,  7,  22,  33-35,  37-38, 
69,  74,  102,  147,  206,  256: 
Anna  Karenina,  34,  38,  101, 
240,  249,  250;  Ivan  Ilyitch, 
34;  The  Kreutzer  Sonata, 
34;  My  Confession,  35;  My 
Religion,  35 ;  Resurrection, 
244;  War  and  Peace,  244, 
246;  What  to  Do,  35 

Transatlantic  Sketches,  145 

Traveler  from  Altrwia,  A,  168, 
234-236 

Trites.  W.  B.,  5 


Index 


279 


Tulliver,  Maggie,  96,  249 
Turgeniev,  32-33,  74,  89,  90,  93, 

173,  204,  207 

Tuscan  Cities,  132,  1<>6,  145 
Twain,  Mark,  29,  107,  142-144, 

151,  218,  255,  256 

Undiscovered      Country,      The, 

181-187,  189,  205,  217 
Unexpected  Guests,  The,  168 

Vacation  of  the  Kelwyns,  The, 

218 

Vedder,  H.  C.,  44 
Venetian  Life,  28,  29,  118,  130- 

136,  139-141 
Verga,     Giovanni.       See     The 

House  by  the  Medlar-Tree 
Verlaine,  Paul,  78 
Vervain,  Florida,  174-176 
Vicar  of  Wakefield,  The,  248 
Villon,  Francois,  72 
Voltaire,  48 

War  and  Peace,  244,  246 
Weaver,  Lorenzo,  184 


Wells,  H.  GK,  115-116 

Western  Adventure,  12 
Westrum,   A.    Schade   van,    12, 

75,  213 

Wharton,  Edith,  138,  144-145 
What  Shall  It  Profit?  124 
White,  William  Allen,  94-95 
Whitman,  Walt,  63,  154 
Whittier,  J.  G.,  26,  78 
Woman's   Eeason,    A,    193-199, 

200,  203,  208 

Wilkins-Freeman,  Mary,  194 
Winter,  William,  78 
Wordsworth,    William,    44,    45, 

46,  48,  149 
Work     While     Ye     Have     the 

Light,  34 
World  of  Chance,  The,  61,  161, 

222,  232,  233,  236 

Years  of  My  Youth,  7,  127-128 
YoricTc's  Love,  167 

Zola,  Emile,  31-32,  61,  74,  86- 
87,  149,  160,  226 


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